Fearless Like a Skunk

I have a Work Husband named Chris.  Having a Work Husband is a lot like having a Home Husband, without all the being in love with each other business.  Chris has a very beautiful and vivacious Home Wife named Lila who he'd much rather spend his days with.  But he's stuck with me for now, two and a half days a week.

Here's what Work Husbands do: Chris reminds me about my calendar events that I can also see on our shared calendar, he asks me if I want coffee when he's making coffee, he tells me when I'm being unreasonable, but mostly he just listens to me bitch about things like mechanics, Odessa's speech therapist, and my Home Husband forgetting what size family picture I have to take to Odessa's class for the Family Month bulletin board because I, stupidly, sent Bryan to the informational meeting on Back-to-School Night instead of going myself.

Appropriately, Chris always sides with Bryan in situations like these. He'll nod slowly and sagely all the way though my story, and at the end say, "So, what you're saying is you're surprised it happened this way.  I find that interesting...."

Chris and I share an office, a phone line, a calculator and a black stapler, which is how the whole Work Spouse situation came to be.  This morning, I came into the office and got him to show me how to make a single cup of coffee with the coffeepot in the kitchenette.  He's got this special system for that....

Anyway, as he talked me through the process the way Bob Vila talks over some house framing specs with Norm, he kept saying, "But be careful not to burn your fingers."

And I was all, "GOD, I'm not in second grade, Daaaad."

And he was like, "You know the problem with people like you and Lila? You aren't afraid enough. In order to not burn your fingers doing this, you have to be a little bit afraid of burning your fingers.  And then you know what always happens? You burn your damn fingers and then you complain about it for the rest of the day.  And then it becomes my problem.  I'm just trying to prevent your problem from becoming my problem."

"It's because I'm fearless," I said. "Like a skunk."  And then I had to tell him this story:

In college I used to go to this psychic named Ann Marie--I've told you about her before.  She was really into what she called "Animal Medicine," which means she believed that we all have animal spirits that kind of guide us through life.  Anyway, the first time I ever met her, she did some kind of Reiki Juju magic on me with her eyes closed, making some little symbols with her fingers.  When she was done, she looked at me sideways, took a sip of Diet Coke and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but you've got a lot of Skunk energy.  You're fearless like a skunk."

So I told that story to Chris this morning, and he just rolled his eyes.

"Quit bragging," he said. "Just don't burn your fingers.  Or do if you want. I have a meeting to go to this afternoon, so I won't have to listen to your whining."

He's actually a really nice Work Husband, even if he is sometimes kind of mean.