Trophy Wife

Lucas Glover- 2009 US Open Champ

“What’s the meaning of this?”  I asked my husband as I balanced his cell in one hand, stirred the burnt spaghetti sauce with the other, and tried to keep the cat off the counter with my foot.  Speaking of cats, that’s exactly what my husband looked like, a very sneaky cat that had just swallowed a very big canary.

“What?  Are you snooping through my phone?” He snatched it out of my hand, at least freeing it up so I could scrub my hands with a healthy dose of Dawn and a bucket of hot water.  I felt dirty.

You asked me to look up a number,” I replied.  “Trust me, that picture of you is the last thing I want seared in my memory!”

“So what’s for dinner?”  He leaned in over the sink to give me a kiss, trying to change the subject---like that was ever going to happen.

“Sorry, but you’re not going to be getting any for ten days, or at least whatever the incubation period is for the Swine flu, or H.flu or whatever nasty disease that thing might be carrying.”  I turned off the faucet and took a few steps back.

“But, baby, it’s the US Open trophy!  What was I supposed to do to it?”

“Certainly not kiss the thing!”  At this point, I’m scrambling through the drawers looking for my Echinacea pills.  “Do you even know where it’s been?”

“I wasn’t the only one who did it!” he whined.

 “That’s exactly my point!”

Now, I mean no offense to Lucas Glover, who won the trophy fair and square and was nice enough to bring it over to my husband’s golf club for a few weeks.  He seems like a really great guy and I’m real proud of him, but even he wouldn’t have kissed that thing until they cleaned it, inscribed his name on it, cleaned it again before delivering it to the eighteenth green with white gloved hands.  Since then, who the heck knows how many lips have touched it.

If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m a germaphobe. 

There I said it.  It’s not something I am proud of, but I’m certainly not ashamed of either.  Case in point, there was this exchange with the waiter when I dined with my kid’s at Applebee’s after a Wal-Mart run not too long ago.

“Someone smells great,” the waiter exclaimed after I order an Oriental chicken salad, a basket of chicken fingers and an order of French Onion soup without onions, or cheese, or bread for my eight year old, who’s like Sally from the movie When Harry Met Sally.  So basically, I ordered a six dollar bowl of broth.

“Thanks,” I told him, handing him back the menus. “It’s my hand sanitizer.  Purell has a new one that just came out in Cucumber Melon.”  I swear he rolled his eyes.

But ya’ll tell me, who wouldn’t grease themselves and their loved ones with a few dozen coats of heavy anti-bacterial gel after leaving, along with 20,000 other people that day, THE great American superstore.  I always say the only way I’m going back in is with a tank of oxygen and a bio-hazard suit, but it’s pointless. 

Some day in the future, in a weak moment, I’ll need a garden hose and a box of strawberry cake mix.

But it’s not just that I’m a germaphobe, I’m a Mom.  And unless you’ve ever ran back and forth between bedrooms and the laundry room, washing sheets and towels continuously while two kids are upstairs throwing up at the same time, you shouldn’t judge.  Especially since these kids are little Petri dishes full of thousands of virus and illnesses I can neither spell or treat with 2 tablespoons of Children’s Tylenol.  I know last year alone, we had fifths disease, an ear infection, 2 strep’s, 5 staphs, and a few “mystery” ailments that I’m sure could stump the CDC. 

Take my friend and stylist Kelli, who owns Bayson Salon, has two small children and comes into contact with tons of people every day because she’s so good at her job.  When one of her boy’s came down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, she spent the week reassuring her clients the disease sounds worse than it really is and she wasn’t contagious.  Finally, one client got to the point, held up her hand and put it all in perspective: “Honey, that’s the last of my worries. Have you seen my roots?”

Even I have to agree.  Life goes on.  Hair goes gray that must be covered up, laundry hampers and milk must sometimes be bought at the same time, and children must actually venture outside the house.

 I know we can’t all live in a bubble, but my husband still has four days left before I know we’re out of the woods. 

While we wait, at least he can look at the nice picture of the intimate moment that Lucas Glover was so nice to let him have with the US Open trophy.