An English major’s guide to dealing with his wife’s “period” problems
This post undoubtedly will lead to my divorce.
All you single ladies out there, get ready. If you’re into funny bearded gingers, this one is about to hit the open market. See, I’m about to touch the untouchable, write the unwriteable, blog the unblogable.
I’m going to tell you about the problem my wife has with punctuation.
And by “punctuation” I, of course, am talking about the issue she has with periods.
Now I recognize the touchy nature of this subject, so I’m going to use punctuation as a euphemism. After all, more than half my readers also have punctuation problems so I have to be sensitive about this topic. It’s difficult for me to empathize since I don’t have problems with periods. Never have, never will.
I’m a writer, after all.
But I can’t say the same about my wife. Every month for a rock-solid week it’s like she forgets how to write. As an English major, this blows my mind since I feel like she should just know how to handle it. I mean, you’ve been dealing with them since elementary school, why do you act so surprised when it’s time to end a sentence?
What’s funniest to me — and the thing that was the catalyst for this whole post — is how these punctuation problems cause such irrationality. This evening I took my son to the store to pick up some groceries and when I got home she was all bent out of shape about what we were going to have for dinner. Then she got all bent out of shape because I got my kids some toys and didn’t get her anything. Then she got all bent out of shape about how much the toys cost even though it would have cost even more money had I actually gotten her something.
And then it hit me.
“Wait, a minute,” I said. “You’re about to end a sentence aren’t you?”
“What did you just say!?!?” she replied, her eyes shooting frigid daggers right into my soul.
“Um…you just completed a full clause. Subject and verb. It’s about time for a period isn’t it?”
I won’t tell you what she said after that, but it was a string of insults that had no ending. A run-on sentence. No period at all. Not even a comma.
And that’s what I don’t understand. When she’s about to go into punctuation mode she gets all angry and emotional and yet the only thing that makes her angrier and emotionaler (not a real word) is if I try to say it’s because of her punctuation. Seriously, if I forgot how to use proper grammar for a whole week once a month, every month, I’d be happy to blame it on punctuation.
“Sorry I’m such an asshole, guys,” I’d say, “I’m having some serious spelling problems.”
“No problem, Jason” they’d say. “I understand completely.”
And then we’d go about our business.
But my wife isn’t like that. She has the perfect excuse and yet if I try to say that her period issues are causing the problem, she’ll turn into a rabid badger ready to chew my head off. Then she gets mad and won’t talk to me for like three months. I call that an ellipsis. That’s three periods in a row, ya know.
But to hell with this period stuff. The way women can act when they start having problems with punctuation makes me think they should call the God damn things questions marks.
Cause you’ve got no idea what the hell they’re gonna do when they hit.
But in keeping with the punctuation theme, I noticed she also gets a little emotional about the extra pound signs that show up during sentence week. Sentence week — that sounds like a prison term. I suppose that fits, too. Only in the English language a period comes after a sentence but when it comes to women the prison sentence comes during the period.
See what I did there?
Best I can tell, the only thing that can help correct her grammar is chocolate. Apparently it stimulates the brain because she made me dash to the store to get her some after I returned home empty handed. She said if I didn’t, she was going to jam an exclamation point up my colon.
Needless to say, I went to the store and retrieved a couple Reese’s to help with her situation and on the way I realized I shouldn’t be getting upset about this whole period thing. After all when our daughter was born I had a vasectomy and the “ink” was taken out of my “pen.” So if she tells me she just ended a sentence but missed her period then I know I’m going to end up with that divorce after all.
Jason Wolverton is the creator of BigFunnyBlog.com. To keep up-to-date on funny posts that will probably lead to his wife divorcing him, like his Facebook page at Facebook.com/bigfunnyblog.
