Stuff My Husband Says

I love Seth, but he says some pretty stupid things sometimes. Maybe it's one of the reasons I love him. On the night we met, one of the things he revealed about himself was: "I won third place in the Maryland Junior Duck Stamp Contest." That was his most skillful pick-up line. It turns out the ducks he painted for the contest are very beautiful, and his parents still have the framed painting hanging in the hallway with its third-place ribbon affixed to it. Seth blames the species of duck he painted for being too plain to deserve a postage stamp. Anyway, that's the way the man I love talks. He says whatever comes to the top of his head. Sometimes it doesn't come out well, and it could be construed as offensive, but nobody pays mind to that when the words are coming from such a handsome, earnest face. Or at least I don't.

But sometimes I pretend to. Last night, while sitting on the couch, Seth referred to me as "my sexy pumpkin."

"Do I look round and orange to you?" I faux-whimpered.

"Okay... you're my sexy... gourd?" Seth ventured.

"So you think I'm bumpy?"

"Are gourds bumpy? I don't really know what they look like."

"Well there are many different varieties of gourds, but they can be bumpy, and brown, or green, or orange, or a combination of all of those."

"Well if there are so many different kinds of gourds, there's got to be a fleshy-colored, sexy gourd."

"What constitutes a sexy gourd?"

"You'll know one when you see one," said Seth, making that clicking noise and gun gesture in imitation of a douchebag character in an 80s movie.

Then later on, as we were both about to go to sleep, Seth and I were having a discussion about Fort McHenry.

"Man, why did they always take us there for elementary school field trips? I think I've been there at least five times," I was saying.

"I've been there at least twice," said Seth, "but I only remember going when I was in middle school. The second time was probably because of the rocket... ... ..."

"Rocket club?" I was thinking. Where was this going?

Then suddenly he started talking again. "Honey, I really should go to sleep. My dreams are starting to get mixed in while I'm talking."

We both burst out laughing, and then I shut my mouth and left him to dream peacefully about rockets.