Understand that My Captain ALWAYS wins.  At every game.  Against anyone who plays him.  All. The. Stinkin’. Time.  He always wins.  Critter and Varmint and I just take it for granted that in all the board and card games we play with him, he doesn’t really count, because it’s a given that he’ll win.  There is no challenge in it for any of us.  The outcome has always been irritatingly inevitable.

UNTIL….

My knee replacement.  I’ve been a lot more sedentary and had a lot more free time over the past several weeks, between the hospital and my recovery here at home.  I’m alone much of that time, with My Captain back at work at the fire station and my children in school.  And for the first few weeks I could not navigate the stairs well, and was discouraged from trying it when I was at home alone.   So the Kindle has been my constant companion.

And on the Kindle is every kind of card game you might imagine.  My favorite hands down is Rummy.  I’ve gotten so good at it that I’ve beaten the most advanced player the Kindle’s App has to offer-more times than not.

And two nights ago I invited My Captain to join me on the bed for a game of Rummy with real cards.  I wanted a real live game, with real live company!!!  He wiggled his eyebrows with a, “Do you mean Rummy, or RUMMY? Heh, heh, heh….”

I flashed him my disgusting knee and swollen, contused leg, and said, “Cool your jets, Romeo, I’m talking cards.”

We played, but I suggested instead of keeping score, we just play for winning hands, and the winner of each hand could actually win something.  He chuckled, imagining he would be sweeping the spoils as usual, and consented.

The first hand I won the prize of having him clean the cat box the next day.

The second hand I won him doing the dishes the next day.

The third and fourth hands I won five minute foot massages.

The fifth hand I won a Sonnet, to be written in my honor.

The sixth hand I won a compliment, which he gave me right there between clenched teeth, “You’re a really good Rummy player.”

On the seventh hand we were arguing about what the prize could be before we played it, and I suggested the loser could pen a Haiku in the other person’s honor.

In his proudest, manliest, most condescending tone he growled, “I. Don’t. Do. Haikus.”

I batted my eyelashes at him and said soothingly, “Maybe you’ll win this hand.”

Friends, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.  It ought to be one DOOOZIE of a Haiku.

I called it by the second quarter.  I said, “Trevor is sick.  Ten bucks says he is sick.  He’s not playing like he is tired, he’s playing like he is sick.”  A mother knows these things.  Even if I’m not his mother, I could just tell.  I can even smell a fever on a kid’s breath.  For Real.

They poo-pooed me.

By the third quarter, Trevor’s head and legs and arms would be down the court, but his butt was still dragging on the other end of the court.  The boy was sucking wind like a fish out of water.  This boy is one of the top scorers in the county, and he could hardly get to the basket this game.

“He’s sick, I tell you.”

They poo-pooed me.

He wasn’t even trying for rebounds, and at one point, I swear he looked green.  “He doesn’t need Gatorade,” I shook my head, “he needs chicken soup and his bed.”

They poo-pooed me.

Critter decided it was his job to sub for Trevor’s dad, Ty, who couldn’t be at the game tonight.  Ty is, er, passionate when watching a game.  Yelling “You Suck!” to a ref is par for the course, in Ty’s world.   Garrick has been watching and learning…ever the dedicated pupil.   I did not allow him to yell “You Suck!” but he did yell other, nearly as insulting things to the refs.  “You Stink!” can sound pretty menacing from that boy. Ty would have been proud.

When the game was over, we met Trev courtside.  The first question I asked was, “Are you sick?”

“Yeah.” He firmly agreed.  “My stomach really hurts.”

“YES!” I laughed, and clapped with glee.   This was, er, not the reaction anyone was expecting.

“I mean, I’m sorry that you’re not feeling well, and all, but I’ve been telling them and telling them that something was wrong with you!”  I couldn’t have been more pleased with my instinctual accuracy.

Trev just looked at me politely, and then gently took a slow step back.

Critter went in for a picture with him, and I am not sure, but I think Trev was using him as a human shield.

But I was right, dagnabbit.  I am feeling very smug in my Mommy-ness right now.

No one ever listens to me.

What do you get when you take a extra sugary,  Monsters Vs. Alien’s B.O.B – themed birthday cake,

11 lit candles,

a newly turned, 11 year-old-boy,

and a Grandma,

who is mature enough not to care about what the world thinks,

but juvenile enough to entertain and enable all of the 11-year-old’s impish plots?

That’s right.

Trouble.

with a capital “T.”

God help us.

How does a man who defines the word “Manly,”

from whom you can just SMELL the testosterone oozing,

one who makes women swoon just in performing simple tasks,

one with the forethought to donate his free time to teach future generations what heroism means,

one who joins his manly man friends in charity drives for burn hospitals,

one who looks like he was born in the wilds of Montana, without even trying,

one who makes fatherhood look positively easy…..

how does he also manage to bring his sick wife an artistically arranged meal in bed (complete with inventive walker/tray-stand) that looks like it popped out of a magazine?

I mean, the time and attention that went into the salad alone….

makes me seriously concerned if my particular talents are even needed in this marriage!

How the heck does he do it???

I joke that he is totally left-brained….but when I see a salad that has been artistically arranged like this….. THAT, my friends, is a seriously right-brained salad.

It’s like I’m married to Dudley Do Right, Ironman, and Martha Stewart, all in one. I’m seriously, SERIOUSLY concerned!