“Your name or your person, which is dearer? Your person or your goods, which is worth more? Gain or loss, which is a greater bane?

Know contentment, and you will suffer no disgrace; Know when to stop, and you will meet with no danger. You then can endure.”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (Book II – XLVI)

 

Obviously, I can’t call this ‘On my Wife’.

Years ago, we went on a weekend trip to New York City, somewhere I’d always wanted to see and experience. My wife surprised me with this utterly wonderful gift. After the usual shopping and sightseeing; we went wandering around here and there just taking in the atmosphere, making occasional trips to an Irish pub where we could smoke.

Late one night, around midnight, we didn’t know exactly where we had got to. The place is terrifically uniform. My wife gestured that we should try going down a street, dark and uninviting – I had visions of ending up somewhere dangerous and being a man, attempted to retrace our steps mentally, rather than put my wife in danger in that unknown vortex of pure evil. Obviously.

My wife insisted and of course, I complied with much reservation. After 2 minutes of sheer paranoia, where shadows in doorways were the predestined crack-addled muggers and rapists; we stepped out of the street into the brightly lit and bustling with life, Time Square.

Addendum:

Hi, this is ‘the wife’ typing now for a sec. I’m going to have to interject here, he’s actually forgotten a fun part of the tale, which I shall relay.

Towards the end of the first dark alley we went down, this huge guy made a gesture for us to go towards him whilst saying, “Do ya wanna buy some CDs?”, I said to ‘pitchforkin’, “ooh let’s see what he’s got?” ‘pitchforkin’ says, “He said LSD you dumb ass.” and dragged me away from him.