Reasons it's handy to have your husband around the house

1. Fix the ceiling fan that's been hanging by four wires above our bed for the last several months. I'm pretty sure it will miss my feet if it falls, but still...

2. Perform a water change in the aquarium. Those poor fish haven't had the water or filters changed since we moved in...it's a wonder they're still alive

3. Answer some of the stupid electioneering calls that I'm getting on my phone which is on the Do Not Call list

4. Take the car in for its 60,000 mile check up. And tire rotation and balancing.

5. Run to the store to buy more soup when I'm so sick I can't keep much of anything else down

6. Go for walks with me. I don't go now but I did when my mom was here, so I think it would be better if I didn't have to go alone

7. Tell me I'm being stupid and irrational when I won't go to bed with a knife lying around anywhere in the house. We had a homicidal maniac running around when I was in college killing girls of my general description with their own knives which he picked up out of their kitchens, so I'm still a little paranoid

8. Cat box duty. 'Nuff said

9. Take me to the periodontist when I'm too doped up on Valium to drive. (Methinks this will be a fairly regular event from now on.)

And finally...

10. Hold me tight while my body shakes with sobs after hearing that they found a lump at my mom's mammogram today. I'm sitting here with no one to call, terrified that this might be related to the colon cancer she survived six years ago, and my husband is on a ship without telephone access, 5,000 miles away.

Damn you, U.S. Navy...I need him far more than you do, can't you send him home now???