She complains about everything. The bathroom’s a mess because I leave newspapers and magazines all over the floor. My workroom is a mess because I leave vinyl cuttings on the floor and food wrappers on my shelves. The computer keyboards are dirty because I don’t swab them with alcohol and a q-tip. She won’t drink out of the coffeepot or use the microwave because she says Saddam Hussein should have had such weapons of mass destruction. She won’t let me turn on the air-conditioner because she says it’s moldy. And she doesn’t stop with just me. She crabbed to Phil Burnham that the bushes were too bushy, so he came down and cut them. Whenever he leaves my office, Phil says out of the side of his mouth, "Good luck."

She insults my friends. I won’t name him, but when my friend M. calls and asks where I am, she says, "None of your business." Or if somebody calls and says, "Who is this?", she says, "Who wants to know?" I do have to admit my customers like her, though. She nags me constantly until their jobs are done. I’ve tried, but remain unsuccessful in getting her to deal more effectively with the calls I get. She asks no questions. I ask her, "what did they want". "I don’t know, call them back." Much of the time they are cold call solicitations. "Why couldn’t you deal with that call" I ask. "He asked for you by name, I thought they knew you." Asking a few questions could get me off the hook and I can be more productive, which is her goal anyway. After all these years you would think she could just find out a little bit about what services the company provides. She asks nothing which makes me think maybe I would be saving more time if I just took all the calls myself. "That’s a good idea" she responds. I tell her if that was the case, I wouldn’t need her assistance. "You’re right, take the calls and call me when it really gets busy, but the rest of this week is out, I’ve really got to finish that afghan I started in December of last year." I just can’t win.

Her hours are erratic. She comes in when she feels like it, and leaves the same way. She makes me buy her lunch because of the microwave thing. She leaves to go shopping or have lunch with her girlfriends or because the Lifetime TV movie of the day is a must see.

Instead of organizing something, she knits and munches on Spongebob Cheezits that she brings from home. I’d fire her except that it’s the craziest thing-I get more done when she’s around. Go figure.

I’ll show up for work, and he immediately says, "I have to run some errands." A run to the post office and the bank takes him about two hours. What is he doing all that time? Meanwhile, back at the place we depend on to pay the mortgage, I’m taking calls for work I know nothing about. I tell everybody, "Sure, we do that." Then I make him do the jobs one way or the other. He’s learned a lot taking on jobs he doesn’t know how to do. Also, I refuse to screen his calls. If he’s there, he can talk to his customers. If he can talk to politicians, he can give equal time to the good people who pay our bills. As far as the cold calls, those people have to make a living too. Who knows, he might even get a chance to talk to some really nice people. Once he actually gets on the phone with those marketing people he tries to sell them something and they hang up on him.

And so what if I leave early. When I go home, I have to wash his clothes, cook his meals, and do the million things a day that women have to do. When you come down to it, women work 24 hours a day. He comes home, flops down, and says, "I’ve had a hard day." Yeah, well, I’m having a hard life 24-7 and it won’t end until I’m dead.

The advantage in working for him, however, is that I can use threats to get him to get his work out on time. "I’ll make your life a living hell if those signs aren’t ready by 5," I’ll say, and he’ll answer, "So what’s new," but the work gets done. Therein lies the beauty of marriage.