Billingsley’s Bullets: It’s time for a new wife!

My ears are demanding that I marry a new wife! Monika and I recently took hearing tests at Kaiser Hospital. The audiologist informed us that I have a hearing problem in my right ear. I hear low sounds/voices well, but the pitch in Monika’s voice is the most difficult for me to understand. I should have married a woman with a low voice. Tallulah Bankhead would have been the perfect wife for me.

• In my search for a new wife, I don’t care what she looks like or how smart she is. Her personality means nothing to me. My only interest is in her voice. Does she sound like Johnny Cash?

• If you hear me asking a woman to repeat what she just said, you will know she is in the running. I will only ask women with low voices to repeat what they just said.

• In our marriage, I do 95 percent of the driving. Monika prefers to be a passenger and not have to listen to my backseat driving. This arrangement has to stop. She needs to speak to my good ear.

• Because my left ear hears almost everything, Monika should drive the car, not me. As a driver, she would be talking to my strong side, and I could hear her much better.

• When I informed Monika that she will be driving from now on, her only reply was, “No, I won’t!” She did not accept my logical explanation regarding my hearing needs and refused to elaborate on “No, I won’t.”

• My new wife will also be a person who prefers to drive the car.

• My father was a great sports fan and often talked about being a “good sport.” He once told me that he was more interested in how I handled a loss than how I handled a victory. He felt that anyone can be a gracious winner, but it was more important to be a gracious loser.

• Once I started to walk to our family car after a tough loss, my dad asked me if I shook the winner’s hand. When I said “No,” he told me to “take care of business.” After I shook the winner’s hand, we had a nice talk, and I felt better. As usual, Dad was right.

• During a recent holiday dinner, our family started talking about what they would do if Monika or I became very ill and needed a lot of help and attention. My children quickly agreed that Monika could move in with any of them. If she did not want to move in, they would locate a safe, comfortable, assisted-living facility for her.

• When the kids discussed what to do with me if Monika were no longer around, the room became quiet and no immediate solution was offered. They said to each other such things as, “You have a bigger house,” “He will listen to you,” and “You’re the eldest, so you should take him.” Nobody stepped forward to try to deal with me.

• When they discussed programs I could enter to assisted living programs, they concluded that I would be a hard sale.

• There were a lot of laughs while discussing what to do with me, and they finally decided that Mom has to stay healthy so they don’t have to monitor me.

• Maybe my eight-year-old granddaughter will take care of me?!

• So … now I have to find a new wife who likes to drive, has a low voice, and is very healthy, too!

Bob Billingsley is a columnist at the Mountain Democrat. His column appears bi-weekly. 

Bob Billingsley

Bob Billingsley writes Heard Over the Back Fence three times a week, keeping his pen on the pulse of the community. He also writes a biweekly column called Billingsley's Bullets, in which he uses “sideways” thinking to make your day a little easier to handle.

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