Wife Code — By Tommy Purser

Spring is here and, once again, the good wife has been ordering me outside to do more work than my almost four decades old back can handle.
Actually, she doesn’t “order” me outside — at least not in so many words. She … hmm, how shall I word this? … prods me outside, hints about what I should (must) do … nudges my internal movement mechanisms ….
What she does is speak in Wife Code.
You husbands out there know what Wife Code is, don’t you?
When speaking in Wife Code, the wife doesn’t actually say what she means. She just gets her point across without speaking a direct, easily understandable phrase. A husband must be able to interpret said code or else …. well, maybe I’ll get to that later.
Let me give you a few of the innumerable, too-lengthy-to-list-here Wife Codes the good wife uses to get me out of the recliner and into the yard to put myself into such a position that I can follow instructions that are also delivered in Wife Code —
“I’m going outside.”
“This is good weather to work out in the yard.”
“It’s supposed to start raining tomorrow.”
“I bought some flowers that need to be planted.”
“That bag of potting soil I bought sure is heavy.”
“The weeds are taking over that flower bed out back.”
“The neighbors’ dogs keep doing their business in our yard.”
“The grass needs cutting.”
“I need a walkway from the back porch to the shed.”
The instructions are similarly delivered in Wife Code, or more often than not, in Coded Wife Questions.”
“When was the last time it rained?”
“I can’t decide if I want to move that azalea bush.”
“Do you think you should have made that walkway wider?”
“When did you deadhead that flower plant?”
“Well, who put that there?”
“Well, who left that there””
“What’s that doing there?”
“Why would someone put that there?”
“Why would someone leave that there?”
“Why is that there?”
“Why did I plant that there?”
“Why didn’t I plant that over there instead of there?”
Of course, I’ve been married way long enough to be an excellent Wife Code interpreter.
But sometimes — not often, but sometimes — I rebel and refuse to respond appropriately to Wife Code and wait out the good wife until she says what she means in plain Manspeak.
Of course that results in either a question such as, “Did you hear what I said?” Or no response at all — better known as “The Silent Treatment.”
I’d rather be horse-whipped.