I walk into our bedroom to find my husband with one hand down his pants with a slightly panicked look on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“I can only find one of my balls,” he answers.
The flush creeping up his neck makes me think he is telling the truth. The chuckle he tries to hold back makes me think maybe he is not. As he continues to search around through the outside of his pants, I am debating my next move. Do I take him seriously or not?
It has been admittedly too long since the last time we bumped uglies in the dark. Longer than we have ever been before. Between work trips, periods, colds, holidays with relatives and the general chaos of small children, our normal need for romance has somehow slipped through the cracks.
Good old Valentine’s Day rolled around just in time to remind us of our delinquency in the love department. Don’t get me wrong, the realization smacked us each up side the head, but the thought falling into the “rekindled our romance on a hallmark holiday” cliché was more than I could bear. Apparently the fear wasn’t mutual. While I fell into a dreamless pink champagne-induced coma, he was obviously lying awake plotting his next tactic.
Which brings us back to our bedroom on February 15th.
The hide and seek game continues throughout the afternoon. “I really can’t find it. This could be serious,” he says. And then he giggles like a schoolgirl. “Well pull down your pants and let me have a look,” I suggest. He fobs me off with the excuse that the kids might walk in. “The kids see you in the shower all the time,” I insist. Nothing doing, he wants to wait until after their bedtime, and not even the fear of completely losing track of a testicle is enough to change his mind.
At 9pm I step out of our oldest child’s bedroom, sleepy eyed and with the tell-tale “I fell asleep while waiting for her to fall asleep” drool line across my rumpled sheet imprinted cheek. Despite feeling like a bit of a dusty and geriatric maiden aunt, I apparently look like something out of a porn video. My husband catches one sight of me and drags me into the bedroom for a testicular inspection.
He lies across the bed with his hands behind his head and indicates his “problem area” with a nod. My response is in my best nurse voice: “Pull down your pants and let me see”. He is now more insistent. “I can’t. What if something is really wrong! I need you to do it,” he cries. And then he chuckles again.
Suspicions high, I grasp his waistband. With one abrupt tug I finally diagnose the problem: something is swollen, but it ain’t his balls.
“One. Two. It all appears to be in good working order,” I say.
“Are you sure? Maybe you better test them out,” he responds. And then he giggles again.
I know when I’m beaten. Husband 1 – Wife 1. At least it was a game where everyone wins in the end.
