things you shouldn't say to your wife and the revenge she might take if you do

aimee once said a book could be written with nothing but direct quotes from me of things that should not be said to your wife to fill its pages. these quotes aren't the intentionally mean and hurtful types of comments that are obviosuly out of line, rather they are the well-intended, honest comments that sound good in a man's head at the time of formulation but then go all wrong and offensive by the time they hit your wife's ears. admittedly, i have had a few of these and with each experience i learn a new way to forego honesty and tell my wife what she wants to hear. it's just easier for everyone that way.

book might be a bit of an exaggeration. it would be a very short book, probably not even as long as my average blog post. nonethless, as difficult as it may be to believe, there have been more than one of these types of comments that have lef my lips. the most recent of which took place over the weekend.



aim and i were at a little party thing playing a game called mafia. it's like the grown-ups' las vegas version of heads-up-seven up but chalk full of lying, deceit, killing, whispering and guardian angels. it was actually pretty fun stuff. anyway, everyone is assigned a chracter: pedestrian, mobster, or angel. the mafia kill as many people as they can while everyone closes their eyes and the angels get special privileges to try and figure out who the mafia are. here's a link to the rules if you are really interested:

turns out one game i was supposed to be an angel, but the moderator of the game thought someone else was the angel and that person wasn't me. long story short, you can't really talk during the game or else it ruins everything. so there i sat, frustrated as all get out, while some other particpant got all the angel glory. i was powerless and unable to say anything until i'd finally had enough and did my best milli vanilli lip-syncing impersonation while supersoftly whispering to the moderator that i was also an angel.



i thought my vocals were sly and untraceable, but once the game ended my wife commented to everyone in the circle that she heard me whispering as clear as day and there had been nothing quiet about it.

jeremy: (loud enough so everyone could hear me) "not so, i was whispering so quietly that only dogs could hear me."

aimee: "are you saying i'm a dog?"

laughter erupts from the party guests and i feel kind of silly.

jeremy: "no." let's move on, next game, please.

participant: "that's bad." (referring to my comment).

so, that's one example, but it really wasn't that bad because it was more of a joke. this one was worse because it wasn't a joke and i still haven't lived it down:



aim: "would i look better if i lost 15 lbs?"

jer: "who wouldn't look better if they lost 15 lbs?"

it was honest. it was naive. it was early in our marriage.

i'll never make that mistake again.

then there was the other time, also early in the marriage when aim and i headed down to argentina to visit my old stomping grounds as a missionary. it was a much anticipated trip because my mission president and his wife were still down there and i was really looking forward to meeting them and having them meet aim. i was also looking forward to playing the classic practical joke that never got old while i was a missionary... the "i'll tell the new guy to say something to the mission president''s wife in spanish that he thinks is a compliment, but is really just the opposite."

the favorite use of this trick was to teach a greenie missionary fresh of the plane to say "hermana, esta muy rica la porqueria!" to the mission president's wife after eating their first meal for them which she had prepared. translated, this phrase basically means "this garbage you made was real good!" we missionaries thought this was the funniest thing in the world, even the mission president would get a good laugh out of it. hermana monroy on the other hand only tolerated our juvenile humor, but usually felt bad for the new missionary we had taken advantage of and tried to stop things before they started. generally, she was too slow, or i was too fast... who knows? i do, it was the latter.

anyway, i thought to myself what better person to play this very same, time-tested trick on then my very own aimee. what better way to start off a marriage than to flat out lie to your spouse and tell her a spanish phrase means one thing when it actually means another. but aimee was no easy prey. already being all the wiser as the result of many similar antics carried out by me in our short time together, aim made me swear on our marriage that the phrase meant what i told her it meant (which was "thank you, hermana, this food is delicious!") and i did. in fact she made me look her in the eyes and swear because what good is swearing unless your looking someone in the eyes? but that was before we "fireproofed" our marriage... and the thought of pulling off this prank not only as a missionary, but as a husband, was far too priceless to risk telling the truth.

and was it ever priceless. we got to argentina, we arrived to the president's house, we sat at the dining room table, we dined, and i was as giddy as a school girl as i waited with anxious anticipation for the appropriate break in conversation so as to maximize the impact of a perfectly timed delivery. i wanted to make sure my eagerness didn't blow it, so i patiently played my poker face throughout the first round or two of the standard dinner table topics. then, after aim had chomped down a few bites, i gave her the "look" and the "nod."

it had been set in motion, there was no turning back now. the phrase we had practiced over and over until i was confident she was pronouncing the phrase as well as any gringa could took flight... it was as if everything was moving in slow motion and not more than two words had left her luscious lips when hermana monroy quickly remembered my smart alecky sense of humor and immediately droned in her "que verguenza" or "you have no shame" tone of voice, "elder cooper!" but it was too late, it had been done. aim said it and everyone understood it. el presidente was laughing as well as his daughters and i was playing dumb.

yes, it was all that i imagined it would be and i'd have to say it was well worth the white lie. i think hermana monroy punched me in the arm or something and aim was kind of embarrassed... but she really shouldn't have been, they knew i was behind this diabolical scheme and she was but a pawn. they would expect nothing less from me and while aim was a bit surprised, her shock was nothing compared to mine many years later when she exacted her revenge on me in a plush hotel room on the banks of the mississippi river.

come back with me to the summer of 2005 while the greater cooper family was enjoying there now annual trip to biloxi where aim's devious plot to get even with me slowly unfolded before our very eyes. to set the scene a little, it just so happened that i had received a dapper set of speedos as a white elephant gift at a Christmas party the year before and was planning a splendid event in which they would make their very first public appearance on my body in the humid and sultry air of the deep south.

i got the speedos at my in-laws' family Christmas party the year before. i had seen the speedos gifted and re-gifted in prior years and felt it was a true shame that no one wasn't taking advantage of the beautifully exotic apparel. leopard print. three pair. blue, orange and gray. one for each day of a three day weekend. no worries, i thought, i'll just wait patiently year after year until i was comfortable enough that i could steal the loin cloth variety set from one of aim's uncles without the bunch condemning me as a pervert (clearly they had never seen me lingerie shopping). thing is, i wanted them for keeps... no recycling of the banana hammocks here, my friends. you think it's hard for me to shop for female lingere? well, you'll never find me shopping for male lingerie (facials and pedicures, maybe... male lingere, never!). finally i nabbed the speedos somehow and those things haven't seen the light of day of a hodges Christmas party since, although they have seen the light of day of biloxi, mississippi.

here's how that went down, no pun intended (wait for it)...

me, being the funny guy i am, decided it would be great family fun and make for a fabulous and endearing family vacation memory were i to swim around in the hotel's swimming pool in a set of my newfound speedos. the blue ones were my speedo of choice on this particular occasion and so i slipped into the tighties with my normal swimming trunks on top. we all hit the pool for a family swim and, again, with timing being crucial, waited for the perfect moment to turn into speedo man. all of a sudden the trunks came off, underwater of course, and the speedos came out to play. it was a lot more embarrassing than i thought it would be, but at the same time it was fairly refreshing. the water felt great enveloping my entire legs. you women don't know what you've got, although american mores dictate that it is much more socially acceptable for guys to swim without tops and not you, women... so we've got you there.

anyway, i held onto my shorts with kung-fu grip because were i to have lost them, i'd had to have trekked back through the entire hotel to get back to the safety of our room in my speedos... not even my self-esteem could take that. naturally, my bros-in-law tried to wrestle the shorts away from me, but i'm much stronger and more agile than they are, so they hadn't a chance. but, it was cute to see how badly they wanted me to stay in the speedos though.

long story short (as if i'm capable of doing that), i put the trunks back on and we all headed back to the room; however, i still hadn't gotten all the mileage out the speedos i felt i could. neither me nor the speedos had lived up to our potential and, so, when aim and i got back into the room and the kids were out of sight, i jumped back into the speedos, threw on a robe and started to waltz around the room with all the confidence of a typical man. aim just laughed. actually she didn't "just" laugh, she laughed and left the room to go into the living area of the suite. so much for that i thought... and then she told me to come out there to her. not bad, i thought. she's beckoning and i will heed her call. and so i did, but i had been duped as i was met directly by my brother-in-law, bryson, his camcorder, and his maniacal cackle (see previous post regarding cackle).

et tu, aimee?

i quickly covered up because bryson wasn't worthy much less his camcorder, but not soon enough. it had been documented for posterity's sake. aim laughed, needless to say bryson laughed, and so did the rest of the family except for me when they saw it. i smiled, but i'd been had. aim had gotten her revenge, and i've got to hand it to her... it was primo. she made me proud. i wasn't sure she had it in her, but i now know she somewhat relishes in the act of embarrassing her husband seeing as she thinks i think i'm too cool to get embarrassed. for the record, not true.

well, that's it. i thought i was running out of material for the blog until someone reminded me of this memorable little event this evening. someone who has actually seen the video, but is not part of the greater cooper family. i won't explain how, but suffice it to say, i won't be posting the video on the blog as i am not sure blogspot could handle the traffic its viewing would demand. but rest assured, my little aim and dr. lemone, i haven't forgotten your stunt. know that i am on the prowl which should give you cause to keep looking over your shoulder for the remainder of your lives just to see if i'm following you, ready to exact my revenge because of your revenge (it's an eternal round). don't worry though, i'll be easy to spot... i'll be the one in the blue leopard print speedo.