The husband felt unusually bold that evening—not thoughtful or charming, but recklessly confident in the way that only comes from momentarily forgetting who you married. They were folding laundry in the living room, television murmuring in the background, when he glanced over with a smirk and made his mistake. Casually, as if offering helpful advice, he suggested they start washing her clothes in Slim Fast. When she didn’t react, he doubled down, adding that it might take a few inches off her backside.
The room went silent, heavy with meaning. His wife folded another shirt with deliberate care, placed it neatly on the pile, and smiled—a slow, polite smile that should have triggered immediate regret. It didn’t. He went to bed that night convinced he’d gotten away with it, blissfully unaware that consequences were simply delayed, not dismissed.
The next morning, he grabbed a fresh pair of boxers and snapped them open. A cloud of fine powder burst into the air, coating his face and sending him into a coughing fit. Staring at the underwear in disbelief, he shouted down the hall, demanding to know why talcum powder was in his drawer.
From the bathroom came her voice, sweet and calm. She gently corrected him. It wasn’t talcum powder. It was Miracle-Gro. The silence that followed was earned. In that moment, he learned that some jokes aren’t jokes at all—they’re invitations to creative retaliation. She, meanwhile, continued her morning as if nothing unusual had occurred.
The second story begins far more quietly. A woman sat beside her husband’s hospital bed day after day, month after month, holding his hand as machines hummed around them. He drifted in and out of a coma, but she never missed a day, speaking to him as if he could hear everything.
When he finally woke, he listed every hardship she had endured beside him, then concluded she must be cursed. She laughed—not because it was romantic, but because it was him. Sometimes love isn’t poetry. Sometimes it’s humor, patience, and staying—no matter what.
