I tried to poison my husband the other day.
At least he thinks I did.
I tried to poison my husband the other day.
At least he thinks I did. But I didn’t. First of all, I’ve read the fine print on his life insurance. If I poison him, they don’t give me zip. Second of all, I’m Italian-American. In our culture, we don’t kill our husbands; we nag them until they have heart attacks. That’s how we get the insurance.
But Harry swears I tried to poison him. Please. I admit I’ve nagged him for 20 years. And the man hasn’t even gotten indigestion, let alone chest pains.
But now he’s acting like I had it all planned out. He even asked to see my to-do list for Monday.
Give me a break. I don’t have a to-do list. That would require organization on my part – something I’m not known for. And I watch “CSI.” I know that if you poison your husband, the investigators will find the to-do list and use it as evidence against you.
And anyway, I didn’t try to poison my husband – I just tried to make him dinner.
You see, I was in a really good mood that day and wanted to cook. This doesn’t happen that often – not the good mood part, the cooking part. I don’t actually like to cook, mainly because I’m a really bad cook and also because I tend to burn down kitchens. In my defense, I have not burnt a kitchen to the ground in several years. Yes, there has been the occasional small fire, but nothing I couldn’t control without the help of the fire department.
But that day was different. That day there were gleaming packages of spiral-cut ham on sale at the grocery store. They called to me. I love ham. It’s salty and sugary – two of the main food groups in my life. So I bought a ham – the smallest one I could find, which was enough to feed our entire neighborhood.
Once I got home I realized that I’d never actually made a ham. Oh, I’ve stood at the deli counter and ordered it – but that’s not the same as cooking it, is it? But I know how to read, so I figured all I would have to do was read the instructions and the ham would be fine.
And that’s how the ham caught on fire.
You see, the instructions said, “wrap the ham in aluminum foil and bake.” So I did that. Nowhere, in any place on the instruction sheet did it say “put the ham in a pan so the drippings don’t make the ham catch on fire.” It just said put the ham in foil and bake. And nowhere, in any place on the instruction sheet did it say “remove the little plastic doo-hickey by the bone so it won’t melt.” So I didn’t do that.
And that’s how Harry decided I was trying to poison him.
But first Harry came home. And the house was filled with smoke from the flaming ham. I was in the living room, trying to wave a broom under the smoke alarm to get it to stop screeching. Junior was cowering in the corner with his hands over his ears, begging the smoke alarm to shut up. We’d been that way for a few minutes – Junior cowering and me waving. So when Harry came in and got the smoke detector to be quiet, we were both very grateful.
That’s why when Harry asked if I was trying to cook again, I didn’t lie. I couldn’t. I mean, I could have, but I’d have been caught. The evidence was shriveling to a crisp in the oven. So I told the truth. And Harry got the ham out. Since it was just kind of smoldering at this point, we decided to eat it.
And that’s when Harry found the melted plastic piece. After he’d eaten part of it, of course. And that’s when he decided I was trying to poison him and burn the house down the cover up my crime.
Now I ask you, would I ruin a perfectly good ham just to poison my husband? Of course not. That’s what hemlock is for. In any event, I have been banned from cooking for life. Which isn’t nearly as awful as it sounds. I mean, what’s so bad about making reservations for dinner? Even I can handle that.
As long as I don’t get anywhere near the kitchen.
