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Should I tell you of the Valentine's Day when the dog jumped on the counter and ate a 1 pound box of chocolates? After a phone call to the vet, I spent Valentine's Day in the snow in the back yard straddling a 125 pound Labrador Retriever, pouring salt down his throat, and trying to make him throw up. Oh the romance! It really is indescribable.
My marriage has been hysterical. Many of the things we thought were going to kill us are the very things we laugh about now. Like making that dog throw up in the freezing cold was not funny that day, in fact I think I cried. Today, it makes me laugh so hard my sides ache.
In 2003, we went through the most difficult time in our marriage. It was so difficult that we have not found ourselves laughing at it very much, if at all. We were in a financial death spiral that was precipitated by our house, which we now lovingly refer to as the money pit. Every time we would try to fix one of the myriad things that needed fixing, that fix would cause 5 more things to need fixing. We thought it would never end. This was punctuated by a one year old and a 2 1/2 year old who decided to give up naps the week we had to put the money pit on the market. I have wondered every now and again when would we ever be able to laugh at that time. We laugh at everything.
On New Year's Day, we were watching an episode of Monk. If you aren't familiar, it is about a private investigator with severe OCD. Everyone can see a bit of Monk in themselves. In this episode, Monk buys a house that ends up destroyed by a criminal posing as a contractor. In one scene, Monk is fussing at his police officer friends for not stopping him from buying the house. They defend themselves by saying that they tried to stop him. Monk says, "You should have shot me. What good is having a gun if you don't have friends who will shoot you?" Paul and I looked at each other and we laughed, hard. Finally.
If God is the foundation and cornerstone of our marriage, humor is the main support beam. We would all crumble under the pressure of life without it.
