All of the major religions have pretty much the same advice for husbands relating to their wives. Those of us who believe in the Bible can find this commandment in Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt not speak poorly of thy wife’s horse, nor her cart, neither anything relating to navigating thy way around town, nor anything having to do with how she drives an automobile, lest thou be smitten with a curse.”
I learned this early in our marriage. My wife Mary called me at work one day to say she had run out of gas on the freeway. She had pulled over to the shoulder but cars were going past her at 65 miles per hour. After we returned home, I lectured her about the importance of always checking the gas gauge and other indicators on the dashboard. I thought she deserved the scolding.
The next morning – THE VERY NEXT MORNING – I ran out of gas in my car on the way to work! I know I always check my gas gauge so I am sure that this Eternal Law mentioned in Deuteronomy cursed my gas tank overnight. Since then I have been careful not to criticize Mary’s driving out loud.
Recently I learned the hard way that this commandment also applies to THINKING ill of her driving skills.
In March we drove to Las Vegas for a long weekend. Since I have MS, Mary does virtually all of the driving. That gives me lots of free time to critique her. On this trip we had to find our way around a strange city and she missed quite a few turns. I was careful not to say anything out loud, but I did think some critical things. Apparently the commandment doesn’t allow husbands to even THINK negative thoughts about their wives’ driving.
The Mapquest directions for driving home from Las Vegas to Denver are incredibly simple. Once you are on I-15 going north out of Las Vegas there is only one turn in the entire 1000 mile trip to Denver. You go North until you reach the exit for I-70. Then you take I-70 going East to Denver. That’s all there is to it. One turn. You can probably guess where this is going. On the drive home, I drove only one hour, and it was the hour that we came to the exit for I-70.
I missed it.
It wasn’t my fault of course. I blame it on the United States Congress.
You see, we left Las Vegas (which is in the Pacific Time Zone) the day after the clocks changed. We got a note from Hotel management the night before telling us that the clocks in our bedroom were controlled from the front disk and would be set forward one hour, but that the clock in the microwave would NOT be changed. As we were leaving the hotel, we checked the time. The bedroom clocks said 2 pm (PDT) while the microwave said 1 pm (PST). I decided to change my watch to Mountain Time since that is where we would be at the end of the day, so I changed my watch to 3 pm (MDT).
We got in the car and it said 2 pm (MST). We couldn’t change it because we couldn’t find a pencil or paper clip to press in the little button on the dashboard. I had calculated when we left that it would take us about 4 hours to reach the I-70 exit. Mary drove for 3 hours then I took over. I tried to try to figure out when we should be reaching I-70. The clock in the car said 6 pm. We left Las Vegas at 2 pm (or was it 1pm?). And that was Pacific Time. The car clock was Mountain Time but I hadn’t moved it ahead (or was I supposed to set it back an hour?). So how long had we been driving? My watch said 7 pm, the car said 6 pm. When we left Las Vegas, it was either 1 or 2 pm Pacific Time, so what time was it Mountain Time? I was so busy thinking about this that I didn’t notice I had missed the I-70 turnoff.
I felt like I was living in a story problem. (A husband and his wife leave Las Vegas traveling North at 70miles an hour. If it is 280 miles to the turnoff to I-70, how long will it take them to get there? If the husband doesn’t notice the exit and travels 35 miles before turning around, how much extra time did he add to their trip? When they stop at a gas station where a 17 year-old boy with pimples is working, should the husband ask him which way I-70 is, or should he make his wife do it? What reassuring things should the wife say to restore her husband’s self-esteem?)
But it is Congress’ fault that I missed the turn. If they hadn’t moved the change to Daylight Savings Time up to early March, I wouldn’t have been thinking about the time instead of watching the road signs.
David LeSueur lives in Littleton, Colorado with his wife Mary,