This is why I Got Married

A wise person, several years ago, told me that you should marry someone who laughs the same way you do. That wisdom has been flawless and is one of the gems that makes my marriage strong. I have a wife who frequently tells me that nothing makes her happier than being able to get me to laugh really hard. Today, she did just that, and she did so in the face of unfavorable circumstances.

My wife is beautiful. She frequently gets compared to the actress Amy Adams who played Giselle in Disney's Enchanted. She responds to those people who make such a comparison by saying that it is not she who looks like Amy Adams, but Amy Adams who strikes a remarkable comparison to herself. She once used this favorable comparison while competing at Girl's State Competition to garner votes by singing a "Happy Voting Song." Not only is my wife beautiful, but she's clever.

Today, however, she was sad. She feels like she's losing one of her closest friends because that friend doesn't reach out to her or respond. She feels like she's forgettable and replaceable and just not someone that people look at and go, "Gosh! I want to be friends with her!" She feels like she's stuck in a weird place of life where friends her age either have children and are busy or they're single and can't relate, or their otherwise occupied, or in the case of our best friends, are four hours north.

So today, my wife was just sad.

We came home from church and decided she what she needed was to put on a warm sweater. So she did. Then she needed chocolate. I keep a kitkat hidden in the house for these very occasions. But, if you give a sad wife chocolate, she'll probably want something substantial to go with it. So she finished off the biscuits and gravy we had had for breakfast. As she was eating them and thinking deeply about her predicament she said, "Biscuits and Gravy. This is soul food. We should make this more often. Like for breakfast tomorrow."

Slowly, she started to laugh about other things. It was good to see. We played some Uno against each other and she decided now was the time to tap into her box of See's candy she'd gotten rather than partake of the KitKat. Each loss took another chocolate from the box. She didn't lose much, but after one in particular loss, she took a Scotchmollow from the box and looking at it said, "This is pusf."

I was confused, too.

She said it again. "Pusf." Really? Pusf?

Then with a big grin said, "Poor Unfortunate Soul Food."

The ability to quote Disney in a delightfully humorous way is what makes her such a remarkable woman. The ability to do so on a rough day makes her a champion. And the ability to do it while being so darn cute is what makes her my wife.

Pusf. Classic.