Overreaction Toast (True Story)

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Overreaction Toast (True Story)

Sometimes my wife overreacts in ways that freak me out. False alarms. While they turn out to be false, they really really really seem like legit alarms when they’re going off.

Hypothetically, I’ll be driving us along and she’ll grab my arm in a near bone-shattering grip and shout “LOOK!!!” Later, when we retell the story, she’ll say that I randomly swerved like a lunatic and missed seeing a really cool hat she saw on some pedestrian, and I’ll say that I had momentary heart failure when she tricked me into thinking there was an invisible bus milliseconds from crashing into us and then changed the subject to some polka dot hat somewhere.

So, last week…

My wife and I like to do night snacks. We know it’s the worst time to eat, late at night. Blah. We just finished watching a show and were cleaning up. As she’s walking away, she asks:

    Oh, can you grab my plate?

    Sure.

I grabbed it and saw there was still a bit of toasted pretzel bread, wearing its delicious quilt of cream cheese. How could I resist? No seriously. I’m asking. I don’t actually know how to resist.

    Great movie.

    (crunch) Yemmffss. (crunch)

Lizzie had been walking ahead of me as we entered the kitchen, but she slowed to an unnaturally fast stop and pivoted on her heel to face me. She had a look of shock on her face. Her eyes were big and fixed on my munching jaw like she was trying to stop time with her eyeballs. She yelled:

    What are you doing!?!

    Hmmfff??????

My jaw was frozen mid-chew when she started to ask me what I was eating, but the words died on her lips as her eyes flicked rapidly back and forth between my mouth and the empty plate in my hands. She knew the answer. And apparently that answer made her eyes go even bigger!

    I killed a spider with that!

    Mnnyaugh!!! (or however you spell the sound you make when spitting out food as if your life depended upon it.)

As I’m retelling this story now, I’m not sure if the force that launched the half-chewed wad out of my head was more from my mouth explosively jettisoning spider-contaminated food, or if it was actually the bread attempting to flee from a mouth with a f##king spider in it!

I repeatedly pushed out my tongue to evict every last atom of what I’d been blissfully chomping on in ignorance. I probably looked like a dog that got into the peanut butter jar, but it still shocked me when she started laughing! HARD!

    I didn’t kill it WITH the toast! I just killed it on the edge of the plate!

    (I said something I can’t quite remember now and probably couldn’t publish even with a bunch of #s if I were able to recall.)

She started laughing harder, but I’m pretty sure that my unprintable response was not intended to increase audience appreciation. She came over and put her hand on my shoulder. I’m going to say it was to soothe me and my potentially spider-infested mouth, but you and I both know it was to steady herself from the knee-crippling effects of laughing insanely.

She kept apologizing breathlessly in between the fits of convulsive laughter, because she couldn’t stop herself. I kept scrubbing my tongue with a paper towel and giving her pretend dirty looks, to keep her going. I was having trouble at this point suppressing my own laughter. Good times!

True story.

Now before anyone gets all Condescension Dundee on me about what a REAL mouthful of mystery yuk is, or starts copying/pasting into the comments the number of household bugs the average human eats in their life while sleeping, just remember: it was the look on her face! The OVERREACTION! It was a total setup for thinking the worst! Of course I was going to immediately imagine that I was mindlessly nomming down on some giant chainsaw-juggling tarantula with a wicked case of the Ebola virus!

“β€œ

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37 Comments

  • Jess says:

    LMAO!!! Us women overreact with EVERYTHING! I think it’s in our DNA. “Good time!” πŸ™‚

    • Andy says:

      Ha ha! I’m not going to confirm that one, but I’m ABSOLUTELY NOT going to deny it either. πŸ˜‰

  • I read somewhere the average tarantula contains 12g of protein.

  • Laurie says:

    OHHH MY GOD! I apologize but I am dying laughing..I was holding my breath as I was reading trying not to puke up my coffee..Hilarious!

    • Andy says:

      Never apologize for laughing at my writing. It’s what I’m here for! Thanks! And sorry about the near coffee puke situation. That’s also what I’m here for, but I’m absolved from liability in some disclaimer somewhere. πŸ˜‰

  • Monica says:

    I know I do the over reaction in the car but never have I done something quite like that. I needed a good laugh this morning. Thanks!

  • Steve says:

    Too funny! The reactions from my wife when we’re driving (when I’m driving) and another car might possibly-maybe in some alternate universe take on a vector, the intersection of which could potentially be our car–yeah, her reaction scares me more than the actual real-life road use situation.

    That’s why I prefer biking. There’s only one seat.

    • Andy says:

      Ha ha! I just got a bike since I live so close to where I work, and because I’m a flabby out-of-shape graphic designer. So you just made coming in to work all sweaty and wheezy seem a little less lame. πŸ˜‰

      Just kidding. I love driving with my wife. It’s also good cardio.

  • Oh, god. I know you didn’t actually eat the smushed spider, but I still feel all gaggy at the thought. Oy!

    • Andy says:

      I had phantom cobwebs in my mouth off and on for the rest of the night. (Holding my tongue out) “Ca’ ‘ou theee ‘omething on ny ‘ongue?”

  • This is just too hilarious. I am for sure going to use this until I worn the prank thin. Now I just have to work on my reaction because as a man, I am mostly silent and stoic.

    • Andy says:

      A lilttle goes a long way then. Just do an old school Chevy Chase quick, temporary widening of the eyes, like you were about to lose it and then quickly regained composure. She’ll start screaming “WTF is it!?!” and scrabbling to get something off her or to get away.

      Just saying. But this conversation never happened.

      • I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Mwah ha aha ha!

        • Andy says:

          Who me? I didn’t say anything. Were you addressing someone else perhaps. Yes, that must be it. Let’s all just start whistling casually and going about our business, shall we. πŸ˜‰

  • MotherDuck says:

    Ha ha ha ha!!! I won’t be eating toast any time soon. Eeek! Thanks for helping me cut carbs!

  • CatZilla says:

    Too funny! Just the other day I was talking with my husband when I looked over his head and ghasped with horror at a moth that had flown into the house. He told me later that the look I had on my face made him think a murdere was standing behind him. I guess I overreact a little too…

    • Andy says:

      I’m laughing a slow and bitterly knowing laugh, like a villain mockingly slow-clapping at a hero. Heh. Heh. Heh.

  • neal says:

    I sometimes wonder if my wife’s over-reactions are her way of testing me to make sure I act appropriately during the REALLY scary situations. So, far, I think I pass with flying colors. And I’ve got ulcers.

    • Andy says:

      LOL! I can almost hear it, from either of our wives, “THIS IS NOT A TEST! For ReeEEEeeeEEEeeeaaal this time!”

  • Craig says:

    That is great! I would have said “insects are a good source of protein!”

    • Andy says:

      Thanks! Ha ha! Insects are also a great weight-loss diet for most. I’m sure you see the power of such a diet craze. πŸ˜‰

  • Corinna says:

    Aww that’s terrible and hilarious. More hilarious. Actually forget the terrible. Your wife is genius.

    • Andy says:

      I’m glad the scales weighed in more on the hilarious. πŸ™‚ I thought so too. We were beside ourselves with laughter. She is a genius. Sometimes an evil genius, even when she doesn’t mean to be. Ha ha!

  • Ang says:

    My mother is a huge “GASP”er. She’s always gasping dramatically at nothing. You would think we would grow immune, but no. At one point I made it the ringtone on my phone for when she called me. Fortunately she never called me when she could hear my phone.

  • Aimee says:

    this post is freakin’ hilarious! overreaction is what us women do best. πŸ™‚

  • Rachel says:

    Ok, so I’ve randomly read three or four of your posts over the last 30 weeks (# of weeks my sweet little alligator talon baby is) during my late night/mid-day quests to find out what I’m doing wrong/right depending on the situation that had me freaking out at that particular moment… Point being, while the official baby sites that tell you how to do it all are helpful, yours had provided that much needed sense of humor and dose of reality to help keep me sane!

    The down side however is that I can only seem to come across your posts while she is sound asleep next to me nursing and therefore have to give myself a hernia trying not to burst out laughing! Once, my husband came running across the room because I had tears streaming down my face while I was simultaneously covering my mouth and nose trying not to laugh- he thought I was sobbing. By some miracle she didn’t wake up. So anyway, thanks for sharing, and I look forward to many suffocating moments in the future!

    • Andy says:

      Ha ha ha ha ha! YEEEESSSSS!!! Awwwww, you made my week. πŸ˜‰ Thanks for the super rad compliment.

  • Annie says:

    For the record do NOT overreact in the car with a Marine who has just gotten back from a deployment to Iraq. I have not overreacted in the car since that incident. I learned my lesson and now I softly say: “there’s a car there or you are going to hit that or that’s a person right there.”

    • Andy says:

      Duly noted! Over! (my mind is busy concocting all kinds of wild scenarios) Ha ha!

  • Rachel says:

    Okay, this post has me in tears because I’m trying not to laugh out loud. My little girls are actually asleep before 9 pm. πŸ™‚

    • Andy says:

      Ha ha! You need to learn the fine art of whisper-laughing. So you can maintain quiet without causing your head to explode from suppressed laughter. πŸ˜‰

  • Cassie Z says:

    Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard over this I almost cried. Worst part, I’m at work and everyone in the office can hear my laugh because it’s painfully loud and the walls are thin.

    • Andy says:

      Ha ha! YEEEESSSS!!! Thanks! I’m probably classified as an “anti-productivity issue” in a few companies in America by now. And counting… πŸ˜‰

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