As stated many times, my wife is a petter person than I am – on so many levels! She also has a fantastic sense of humor. It is dry and witty and she comes up with fantastic one-liners!  She is HILARIOUS without forcing it. Her humor is natural, unpracticed, and off the cuff. What comes up, comes out.  Having a baby later in life has given her humor a whole new facet.

This is the seventh writing, and an ongoing installment of Things My Wife Has Said: 

• My wife is a very smart woman. She takes care of our finances and is a spreadsheet Demi-Goddess at work. However, we all have one or two gaps in our ‘book learnin’. She was today years old (2024 at the age of 41) when she found out that narwhals are not mythical creatures and that they actually are marine mammals that swim in the ocean.  She thought that they were just like unicorns or fairies or leprechauns. She did NOT find the Wikipedia article I opened, videos, or my crying laughter at all amusing. 
• We had a babysitter and were headed out on a date. My bride gave me head to toe once-over, looked down at my Birkenstock clogs and said “Those are not ‘Date Shoes’ and you will be changing them unless you would prefer this date to be a platonic one.” I changed my shoes.

• So, I walked in the bathroom and my wife and the baby are in the bathtub but 5 feet from the tub there was a suspicious puddle with a suspicious tint and I asked my wife “did the baby pee on the floor?” Our French bulldog, Truffle, entered the room and seemed scandalized that someone peed in the house, Truffle looked at me like ‘I didn’t do it!’ and Laurel glanced down at the puddle in mild unconcerned surprise, then at me, and back at the puddle and said, “Yep”, completely non-pulsed like it was a new normal. Random baby pee puddles in the house and a scandelized puppy is a new normal.
• When talking about the military phonetic alphabet and its etymology after my wife heard me spell something out over the phone during a work call, she said that it she always used UNICORN for the U and thought everyone else did. I said no, it is UNIFORM, to which she replied, “I’m sure the unicorn thing is better. People should use UNICORN.” and then when back to reading a book on her phone like the matter was closed forever.  I am going to need to call the Pentagon and let them know about the change.
• My wife and I can’t wrestle. We are no longer allowed to. It is a mutual agreement. She’s not a good wrestler and she gets frustrated when I pin her or I laugh or something happens that she doesn’t want to, like an arm bar or getting flipped around. In her frustration, she lashes out and tries to bite me like one of the undead in Dawn of the Dead, or like a walker in The Walking Dead. Savage. I tell the story sometimes when we are among friends or out in a group and the other day my wife said “I really wish you wouldn’t tell that story in public.” I gave her a quizzical cool look and she said “that should be private.” apparently her being an unstoppable, biting machine and not a good wrestler is “private.” It is not private and if someone were to tangle with Mrs. Talley, know that she will 100% bite you in a very tender spot and hang on like a pitbull. There will be repeated bites.
• I walked into the baby’s room early one morning and there was a pile of dirty clothes that wasn’t there the night before. Apparently there were a number of diaper related incidences in the middle of the night. I sarcastically said that “looked like it was a good time”. With eyes narrowed, my wife said, “It was absolutely not a good time while you laid there snoring and Truffle (our Frenchie) was just farting away, both of you oblivious.” There was an undercurrent of malice in her voice. I made a hasty retreat without additional sarcasm.
• Laurel walked into the living room carrying a box of Girl Scout cookies (Samoas) and I said, “You’re going to ruin your supper”. – half jokingly. She looked dead at me and said : “This is my supper.” and opened the box while still staring at me, eyes locked, not blinking. 
• On the subject of rubbing her feet, she recently said that “I should remember and acknowledge that her tootsies are like thirsty little plants in the desert that need lotion to survive.”
• While planning, organizing, and shopping for the baby’s nursery she referred to the process as “Gettin’ Nesty Wid It”
• Our wood stove fireplace insert has a catalytic converter to assist in it burning more efficiently. Laurel doesn’t always remember what it is that makes burn cleaner. She called it a “Flux Capacitor” and admitted that any complicated electro mechanical item that she is unsure of the provenance or use becomes a Flux Capacitor to her.  Just like any place that she forgets the name of automatically becomes “Hogsmeade.”