Bruce Vain

It started out as a favor to my wife. It ended with me frothing at the mouth on the carpet in our bedroom. And not in a good way, either.

You should know up front that my wife is pregnant. Has been for about six weeks now. So, naturally, all the joys of pregnancy are being visited upon her – nausea, sleeplessness, the desire to carve off chunks of my anatomy that I’m quite fond of. As a result, I’ve tried to pitch in and do as much as I can around the house to help. “Anything for you, dear!” has been a common refrain in our house lately. “Just put away the butcher knife!”

And, if I do say so myself, I’ve done a pretty good job of picking up the slack. She’s been able to relax on the sofa or in the bed while I cleaned, and washed clothes, and got the boys dressed for school, and vacuumed, and whatnot. I can tell I’m doing a good job, because she will often see a project I’ve just finished – say, cleaning the kitchen – and she’ll sigh heavily, and shake her head. Obviously she’s realizing I can do just as good a job as she does, and she’s feeling unneeded. I try to hug her at these times, to reassure her, but she usually has the butcher knife in her hand, so I can’t get too close.

Anyway, I came in from replacing the battery in my car last night, and it only took me 45 minutes, so I was feeling pretty darn good about myself. My wife was plopped on the floor of our bedroom, with a small pile of picture frames on one side and a considerably larger pile of frames on the other. She was rocking back and forth, weeping softly.

Instantly, my keen husband senses were on the alert. I figured something was wrong, but I’ve learned it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Honey? Is something wrong?”

“It’s these stupid picture frames,” she said. “I HATE putting pictures in picture frames, and this is what I was going to give some people for Christmas, and I’m having a hard time doing this, and Christmas is only three weeks away, and I don’t know how I’ll finish in time, and …”

“Would you like me to do it?”

“Oh, WOULD you?” And with that, she was laying on the couch, watching bad reality television, while I stared at a stack of about 15 picture frames.

Now, I don’t like to brag, but as good as I am at stuff like cleaning the kitchen and replacing car batteries, I absolutely ROCK at putting pictures in picture frames. Seriously. If putting pictures in picture frames were an Olympic event, the U.S. would take the gold medal every year thanks to me. I’d get my picture on a box of Wheaties, with a picture frame in one hand and an 8 x 10 glossy in the other.

So I settle down to the job. It’s going smoothly – I get almost all the pictures in their frames in about 20 minutes. I’m setting all kinds of good-husband records. The Wheaties people have called twice, but I’ve ignored the phone. It’s that kind of high-level concentration that lets us top athletes excel in our chosen sport.

And then it happens. I notice one of the picture frames has the price sticker stuck directly on the glass. Right smack-dab in the middle.

Stop and think about that a second. The ONE place you don’t want a price sticker on a picture frame is directly on the glass. I mean, there are dozens of other places the store could put the price sticker – on the outside of the frame, or on the back, or on the edges, or on the cardboard little foldy-outy thing in the back that’s supposed to make the picture stand up but that never lasts more than a day or two without collapsing, etc.

But noooo. This retailer decided they had to put that sticker RIGHT ON THE GLASS.

But even this is not a problem, because I’m a dual-sport athlete. In my spare time, when I’m not putting pictures into picture frames, I’m peeling price stickers off items. I’m so good at this that frequently our neighbors will come over to watch, marveling at how I can get the sticker off without tearing it or leaving any sticky residue on the surface.

Our neighbors don’t get out too much.

Anyway, I see the sticker, and I start to peel it off. Unfortunately, this particular store either uses a vastly inferior price sticker, or they have a maniacal clerk who believes in superglueing the stickers on their merchandise, or the sticker was exposed to gamma radiation and became The Incredible Hulk Sticker, or something ... because this thing just will not come off. Try as I might – and I tried mightily, let me assure you – I couldn’t get the sticker off without tearing it to shreds, and leaving those little white pieces of sticker-crap all over the glass front of the picture frame.

Okay, no problem – I can still handle this. In true manly fashion, I use my fingernails to scrape off the white sticker-shreds. After a while, I succeed in getting off all the sticker … but now the glue-stuff is smeared on the glass.

And, frankly, I’m at a loss. Spit doesn’t seem to get this stuff off too well, no matter how hard I rub it. I tried Windex, but the glue-stuff just laughed at that. Nail-polish remover seemed to work slightly, but it also spread the sticky stuff around an awful lot. I thought maybe the stuff wouldn’t be too noticeable once the picture was in the frame, so I put the picture in to see. Unfortunately, the sticky-stuff was right over my youngest son’s face in the picture. Even as a man who doesn’t pay much attention to pictures, I knew that wouldn’t fly. (“Why does our youngest child look like he has leprosy in this Christmas picture?”)

I tried moving the picture around a little bit within the frame, to get the smeary stuff off my son’s face, but the best I could do was reposition the smeary stuff over Santa’s face. Which wasn’t going to fly, either. (“Why on earth did you take the boys to get their pictures made with a Santa with leprosy?”)

And as I was struggling with this glop on the glass, I happened to notice that the last remaining picture frame, the only one left I had to do once I got this situation squared away, was also from the same retailer. With an identical price sticker. Stuck in the identical place on the glass.

And I lost it. I think I might have howled. I distinctly remember gibbering, but everything’s a blur after that. When I came to my senses, an unknown amount of time later, somehow the remaining pictures were in the picture frames, with nary a trace of sticker or sticker glop on the glass anywhere. It was a Christmas miracle!

I paid the price for that miracle, though. Somehow, during my conniption, one of the price stickers had adhered itself to a favorite part of my anatomy.

My wife keeps insisting she can get it off with the butcher knife.

Redlemon

Very nice, Bruce. I love your narrator; very self-assure, very stupid. And I hate those fricken' stickers.

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I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Bruce Vain

Self-assured and stupid, that's me.

ItWasMe

"Anything for you, dear. Just put away the butcher knife"

Best line of the story. Thanks for sharing. And I hate those stickers, too.

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"Ok, no more truth-or-dare until somebody returns my underwear" ~ George Lopez

I bake cookies just so I can lick the bowl. ~ ItWasMe

jewels

Very cute!

If it's not too late, try some nail polish remover!