IDIOT INSURANCE

It's not easy being married to a therapist.


ME: (Via text) "Hon, I'm at Home Depot. I was going to pick up some flowers, maybe an "angel-themed" birdbath, but let's do that together this weekend"


WIFE: (Via text) "ARE YOU A COMPLETE IDIOT?"


Note: No - you didn't miss anything between these two lines.


There's a life lesson here for men. Even if your intention is totally selfless, and you think you've figured out something that may actually make your spouse or significant other happy, forget it; you are a complete idiot.


Luckily I have a wife who can articulate why I'm an idiot. You may need to pay a professional.


Along with a license to listen to people for $100 an hour, (more often 45 minutes, not counting the 30 minutes in the waiting room listening to recorded sounds of birds tweeting and toilets flushing, set up for the previous patient's (victim's) privacy), a therapist has a DSM book of diagnosis.


This is a paperback book, the size of a small chevy truck, that provides a numerical code for every known, real and imagined mental disorder, for the expressed purpose of insurance reimbursement. (NO I did not just make that up).


It's other purpose, if you happen to be married to a therapist, is to allow your wife to take any recent statement that you've made, and provide for you, not an answer to the question, but the formal diagnosis as to why you asked.


Initially, my diagnosis was "Complete Idiot." A disorder that falls somewhere between Attention Deficit Disorder and Zunich-Kaye syndrome, which is a polite term for Mental Retardation, and useful here because it begins with a "Z."


If you're lost as to why the quick diagnosis as Complete Idiot, from the single request to share some time at Home Depot, it's because you didn't spend twelve years earning a Masters in Counseling, and you probably don't own a DSM book.


Actually it's a DSM III or maybe by now a DSM IV book. Each time they come up with new excuses why people act like morons, they have to give it a name for insurance reimbursement, so the books get larger. They were going to put it on a Kindle, but despite the fact that we can now get the entire library of congress onto a micro-chip the size of a neutrino, the DSM books don't fit.


Stupidly, I chose to respond to the text with some truly heartfelt reasoning as to why making the front of our office building look nice makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Our daily routine often feels like we're on a hamster wheel, running fast, but getting nowhere. If I can personalize my office space, I have some tiny physical evidence of something changing for the better, and I enjoy a small creative outlet.


ME: Something to the effect of what I just explained above.


WIFE: "OMG! You can rationalize anything to yourself. We don't have the money to pay bonuses to our employees, or to pay back our start-up loans, but let's get a bird bath."


OK. In the interest of fairness in humor, she scores big there.


Plus, I suppose I should have read the financial concern into her question, "Are you a complete idiot?" What, did you miss that too?


A few minutes go by, while I'm walking the aisles at Home Depot considering how stupid I was to even think of texting my wife in the first place, and I get another phone buzz. I'm afraid to look; how many times can I have my balls snipped in one hour? Especially since I willingly exposed them to the chopping block?


WIFE: HONEY! I'm not mad. I just realized why you're doing this. I'll tell you later."


This of course means that she has pulled out her DSM IV, or perhaps by now DSM X book, and cross-referenced God knows what, to determine the reason I would like to plant flowers outside my office, and yes, perhaps place a small fountain or bird-bath. She is convinced apparently that this is some sort of disorder. If she can just find the code; 1. I am absolved of all guilt, 2. This may be reimbursable by medical insurance.


I too have been married 16 years, so I know what my wife is thinking, and it doesn't take a 1200 page book of gibberish to get it.


ME: "I'm in the manic phase of a bi-polar episode."


WIFE: "Yes! And I want you to enjoy it. Just don't spend any money."


Now, did you catch what happened here?


She was angry, until she found an excuse for my behavior. Then she felt bad for me, because there's a re-imburseable excuse for me.


Unfortunately we're not covered. My idiocy and bi-polar diagnosis are both pre-existing conditions.


I think they both contributed to why I got married.