“Trust Me”

Angie is very trusting. She has to be, she has been married to me for over 40 years. Angie recently told me that for the first two years of our marriage she thought I was perfect…………..Now she knows better. She still surprisingly believes most of the things I have told her. This is proof of her kind and trusting nature. Some would use the term “Gullible” but I don’t agree with that definition as it implies a lack of intelligence. Angie is very intelligent…..when she wants to be….. Naive would be more accurate as one definition of that term is:

(of a person) natural and unaffected; innocent.

“Andy had a sweet, naive look when he smiled”

My first hint of this was while we were “courting”. The occasion was our first kiss. Allow me to set the scene:

Location: Del Mar State Fair, on the bleachers in a somewhat dark corner.

Result: Disaster.

Unbeknownst to me, Angie’s experience in the wonderful world of “Making out” was sneaking out to the rear corner of the barn at the family farm to practice kissing with her older male cousin. No, she was not raised up in one of those areas of the country that possess a very shallow gene pool……….. If any from that puddle are insulted, my apologies. (FYI – if you get a divorce you are still brother and sister)…………Angie and her cousin’s style consisted of the world famous “butt pucker” kiss you give your grandmother.

My experience was much more in depth. It was with my oldest brother’s girlfriends (yes, plural) when they found out I was an “innocent”. They tried their best to debauch me but I was too “innocent” to notice. They did, however, teach me to kiss. It consisted of trying to consume your partner’s face.

As you can assume, our two very different techniques did not work out well. Angie screamed into my wide open mouth that was covering half her face. This did a lot for my male esteem. After many therapy sessions I got over it.

Early in our marriage we had just bought our first ever “new car” and we were taking it on a road trip. It was a Mazda GLC. I referred to it as the “Goofy Little Car”. It had one of those parking brake levers between the front seats. I discovered that if you held the button in while lifting the lever it would not make the usual “clicking” sound. I decided to have a little fun with my beloved by silently raising the lever until the red brake light appeared on the dash. After several attempts she finally noticed the red light and said:

“Why is that red light on in the dash?”

I would lower the lever and look at the dash and reply “What red light”?

She would look again and say “It was just on!” I would look at the dash and then look at her with raised eyebrows.

“Really! There was a red light on the dash!”

“Hmm” would be my reply as we continued to drive on with her now intently staring at the dash.

I silently raised the lever again and she screamed “THERE IT IS AGIAN!”

I would glance down at the now normal looking dash and then over to her.

“REALLY! IT WAS JUST ON!”

I again glanced at the dash and then to her as I silently raised the lever. “THERE IT IS AGIAN!” And I would glance back at the now normal dash.

I kept this up for a half hour. By now Angie resembled a crack head who had not cracked his head in a long, long time. Finally I let go of the button and raised the parking lever until it clicked. She glanced down at the lever then back up a me with a look on her face that, mildly put, was not pleasant.  A word to the wise here, NEVER beat on the driver of a “goofy little car” when said car is traveling at 80 mph. It’s just not safe. Trust me.

Fast forward twenty years and again we had just bought a new car. This time it was a Toyota Sequoia SUV. Have you ever noticed that when you get a new car you start to notice the same model all over town? Such was the case as Angie and I were driving around one day.

Another Sequoia just passed by us and Angie pointed it out to me. This vehicle had a hitch cover with a small propeller on it. This peaked Angie’s curiosity and she asked “what’s that little propeller doing on the back of that car?”

”Oh”, I replied, “that is one of the amphibious models of the Sequoia. Along with a 4-wheel drive lever they have a “water mode” lever that transfers the engine power to that propeller so you can drive into a lake and cross it to the other side. It doesn’t go real fast but when you reach the other side you switch over to 4-wheel drive and drive out. It has a special door gasket system to make the vehicle water tight.”

”That’s amazing!” She said.

For the next two weeks she was telling her friends about the amazing extra you could add to the Sequoia we had. Finally one of her friends asked her where she got her information and Angie simply said “Derek told me”….. At least we were not traveling at 80 mph when I got this beating.

Our daughter Ashley inherited some of her mother’s “Naive” ways. She was watching a WW2 documentary about all the famous Jewish people who had to leave Germany before the war. One of them was Sigmund Freud, the Austrian nuerologist  and founder of psychoanalysis.

”Wow!” She exclaimed, “to think that he was able to restart in America all over again. Isn’t he the guy who has that tiger show in Las Vegas?”

When Ashley reads this I will most likely get another beating. Trust me.