Panty Raid

In our legal system, you are innocent until proven guilty. I don’t have a law degree, but I’ve watched enough episodes of Law & Order to know the law of the land. Marriage, however, seems to have a completely different legal system where a husband is guilty until proven innocent.

For the nearly 28 years I’ve been married to my wife, this rule has prevailed in every instance where I was the suspect of some “crime.” That can range from a misde- meanor of eating the last piece of cake that she was sav- ing for herself to a felony like cleaning out her purse.

Recently, I was accused of something that carries the death penalty. The other week my wife was scheduled for a routine outpatient medical procedure.

I decided that I would take off of work so that I could drive her there, wait until the procedure was done and then bring her back home.

Since it was only the two of us, I used my car, which is a two-seater. We got into my vehicle but just before I pulled out of the garage, she told me to wait and jumped out. My wife is always prepared for anything, and in this case, she decided to bring some extra clothes.

She held the bag on her lap and unbeknownst to the two of us, one of her garment items fell out of the bag and went between her seat and the passenger door. Anyway, everything went fine, which was absolutely the most important thing to me.

This past weekend, just my wife and I decided to go out for dinner to celebrate the fact that we graduated two children from high school.

Again, since it was just the two of us, we went in my car. About midway to the restaurant she reached down and pulled up the garment that was wedged next to her door.

She held up in the air what looked like a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties and she exclaimed, “Ron, what the hell is this?” I nearly drove off the road trying to fig- ure out how those got in my car.

Then laughing, she said, “Oh, yeah, these are mine. Must have fallen out of my bag the other day.”

That was probably the closest I’ve ever come to a real heart attack since the time our daughter told us she had a boyfriend.