Innocent Husband and 31 Years

An Undercover Vice Cop is to Blame

I was introduced to Innocent Husband by an undercover vice cop.

The undercover vice cop was named Tom and he, along with a team, arrested people/gangs who had made the unfortunate choice of buying and selling drugs.

It was not a job for story-telling daydreamers, like myself.

(Yikes! Too scary!)

Tom was my friend, Sheri’s, stepfather. I met him when I was ten years old.

The photo, below, is not Tom. This is Innocent Husband.

For those of you who don’t already know, I call my husband Innocent Husband because he is never responsible for anything odd / outrageous I say or write. He is innocent. It’s a little joke.

Sometimes Tom would shave his head for his undercover work. Other times he’d have a goatee. Sometimes a full beard and moustache. One drug case would wrap on up and he would make himself look different for the next one and whoosh…he’d be back undercover. He was a tough cop, but a gentle bear.

However.

When Sheri and I were teenagers and would ask Tom if we could do this…or that…usually something that involved us out dancing about late at night or wandering around the neighborhood when the moon was full and the sky shone with stars he would utter one, decisive word, “No.”

And that was that!

Tom had said no, in that firm-do-not-mess-with-me-tone and we obeyed and stayed home.

Sheri had a sister named Lori. Lori dated Rob. Innocent Husband was best friends with Rob. Innocent Husband hung out with the same family as I did.

Tom set us up on a date when I was 24.

Innocent Husband has told people that he was being “arrested” by undercover vice cop Tom and that’s how we met.

He thinks he’s funny. Do not believe him.

We went on a date, then another one and many dates later he popped the question about getting married and looked like he wanted to faint. In fact, he left the room for a wee bit, and plopped himself down on a bed so he wouldn’t have a heart attack. I sighed.

Three kids and a bunch of cats later, we’re still married. We hit 31 years recently.

This dog, Garmin, is not ours. We are at my sister’s place in Montana. She collects dogs who desperately need homes. They are very lucky to end up in her collection. Don’t worry! Tom never had to arrest one of Karen’s dogs.

Not all the days / weeks / months / years of our marriage have been full of sunshine and magical rainbows. I have never pretended that I was in a perfect marriage. I have never pretended that I’ve been a perfect wife or that Innocent Husband has been a perfect husband.

In fact, if I said out loud to Innocent Husband that we have both been perfect spouses, or if Innocent Husband said that to me, we would double up with laughter and, if we were drinking say, lemonade, it would shoot out our noses like a waterfall.

It’s been a long marriage with all that that implies. We’ve had really fun times. We’ve drifted down rivers in our drift boat, played bad golf games, hung out in Montana and loved our three glorious kids. We like to talk and go on country drives.

We’ve had hard times. Some of those times came internally, difficult issues between the two of us or difficult issues that one of us was having with life.

Yes, I did this today. I must have WAY too much time on my hands. This sour cream smile is scary but I was hoping to make Innocent Husband laugh. This food is not cursed, though it may appear to be so.

Some of those hard times came externally. We took care of, along with our siblings, both sets of parents as they became sick and then died. Our mothers died in 2002 and our fathers in 2007. Tough years. Some of our best friends have also passed on.

Our jobs have sometimes been great and sometimes they’ve been a disaster. I once worked with a smiling liar. That was fun.

We’ve had worries and problems of all sorts that I won’t list as that would be boring and dreary and we all know what kinds of worries and problems couples go through blah blah blah.

A few days ago I wrangled my stiff body out of bed and stared in the mirror. My hair looked like there was a mouse living in it. I had no make up on except for mascara that had smeared under my eyes, giving me a frightening, demented witch sort of expression.

Someone - maybe an evil sorcerer - must have cast a spell on me as I slept because I had clearly aged 10 years overnight.

This is not me. Some people might say that I am a witch, but I do not have any professional certification that indicates this.

I was also muttering aloud because I woke up thinking about two different characters I was writing about and what they’d say to each other during a fight. In short: Innocent Husband had just spent the night with a mad woman-witch with a mouse who talked to herself in angry tones.

He smiled and said, “You look beautiful, Cathy.”

You see, this is one of the reasons I love Innocent Husband: He makes me laugh.

I laughed at his ludicrous statement. I might have sounded like a cackling witch stirring her potion in a black cauldron. He laughed back. He sounded handsome.

I said something really romantic like, “You are ridiculous,” and something very sexy which was, “Why do you say stuff like that?”

And we got on with our day. Still married.

As I wrote in my new book, coming out soon, “Love is previous.”

PS If you want to read a cool book about a nurse, a special kid, a famous soap opera star, and a frazzled father with disobedient triplets, you might like A Different Kind of Normal. There’s a little magic in here, too, handed down through the generations from the witches of yore. At least - hear ye hear ye - that’s what the family legend says…

There are no evil sorcerers like the one who cast a spell on me and aged me 10 years.

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