Two hicks walk into a pshrink's office...

...and that's all I got. No punchline yet.

I find going to see the pshrink rather painful on a good day. Now imagine bringing the husband, the love of my life, my greatest love and biggest frustration, into that room to face the pshrink. Dr. Bushyfrank.

On one hand, I want Dr. Bankenfrush to just grill Jethro. I want him to nail him to the wall with his unrelenting questioning. I want my husband to squirm and sweat and ADMIT that he is a workaholic and that perhaps, maybe, that this has a bit of a role in whatever mental/emotional difficulties I now find myself dealing with...

...but, this is my HUSBAND and nobody, I mean NOBODY can trash talk my man. No way. That's MY job.


So I sit on the large leather couch with the brass upholstery tacks-- I kid you not-- ripping new hangnails, examining my running shoes, pressing my thumbnail into my top lip, and generally feel like I'm burning alive, slowly, while Jethro speaks. In his gentle voice. I'm alert, poised, coiled like a compressed spring, waiting for any signs of distress from him, because I know that I have come close to tears in these sessions, and I can't handle it if it comes to that with him, because I would...I would...what? What would I do if, god forbid, his voice choked up?

I sit there crushing down the tornado of conflicting emotions. I want him to feel the hurt but because I love him so much I want to protect him and never let him know any of this.

I have known this man for NINETEEN YEARS. We've been married for almost fifteen. We basically did much of our growing up together. It's long enough to build up a truckload of unresolved problems and to cement us into an unbreakable committment. If we haven't been broken up by now, we never will.

I really didn't want to go straight home, so we stopped in a little cafe for lunch. As we sat there, carefully discussing the session, which, thankfully, didn't mess him up like it did me, he got the devilish twinkle in his stunning green eyes. I may be a halfway-decent christian girl, but I cannot ever resist the devilish twinkle. God help me.

Jethro: You wanna just strangle me right now, doncha?

Heidi: (whispering) A little bit, maybe, yeah.

J: Just fling yourself across the table and wrap your little hands around my neck and go for it.

H: Yeah. Yeah that'd be fun, kindof.

J: Wouldn't it be great to go apeshit and upend this table, send all the plates flying, and start wailin' on me? Just beat the holy crap outta me, right here?

H: (shaking slightly) Stuff breaking. Everybody looking.

J:And then the next day all the other-mothers would be avoiding you on the street and whispering, "That's the crazy chick who was in the paper for causing a public disturbance!"

H: It would be as much fun as stealing a fire truck.


Keep in mind, I've got this mennonite pacifist mentality that won't allow me to do something like that in REAL LIFE. Especially not to the MAN THAT I LOVE.

But the fact that he can lean across a table and joke about it, well that, in some sick way, makes me love him even more.

He claims that he is scared of me.

I love him even more than I love Johnny Depp.