Customer: Hello
Clerk: How may I help you?
Customer: I would like to return this please.
Clerk: Would you tell me what is wrong with it?
Customer: Well it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't function the same as it did when I got it. It is very expensive to operate now. The repair bills are costly. It is in the repair shop at least once a month. It doesn't look the same as when I got it. It isn't pleasant to be around any more. It is not as enjoyable to use as it used to be. I am no longer happy with this product.
Clerk: I see. What is it exactly that you want us to do?
Customer: I would like a newer model or my money back.
Clerk: Well you will need to make a formal complaint with the Ankylosing Spondylitis Wife Department, the number is 1-800- AS- Sucks
Sometimes I wonder if there was such a thing would my husband look for my receipt to return me or get his money back. I know that I am making light of a serious situation but humor has always been my way of dealing with things that bother me. Lets be honest here, in 1976 at the age of sixteen and nineteen, we had no idea just how hard it would be in the days to come to honor our wedding vows.
Does anyone really understand the true meaning of those words spoken on that special day. "Ronnie, do you take Cookie to be your wedded wife to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love, comfort, honor and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful only to her so long as you both shall live?" I mean he wasn't thinking in the back of his mind, about Ankylosing Spondylitis, medical bills, medicines, surgeries, grouchy wife, wife with chronic pain, crying wife, depressed wife, disfigured wife, stress, worry, and grief till death do we part. I wouldn't blame him if his nightly prayer ends with please end my suffering and hers, and let it be over tomorrow. I assure you he didn't have any idea his life would be this way when he signed up for the job of being my husband thirty-five years ago.
My heart is burdened with guilt for causing his life to be so stressful and unhappy. It breaks my heart to know that had he met me during this time of my life, he would not be attracted to me physically or emotionally, due to no fault of his. Oh he will deny it wholeheartedly when I say this but deep down inside I know it is the truth. Sometimes I wonder if the kindest thing for me to do is to give him a divorce and relieve him of his duties as my husband. I would, except I love him too much to let him go. I try my best not to let Ankylosing Spondylitis change who I am inside but sometimes the monster comes out. I can't do anything about the changes that Ankylosing Spondylitis is doing to my body. I am thankful there has never been a time he has made me feel as if he truly doesn't love me. One of the most genuine acts of love he ever showed me, was during one day when I was crying about a huge surgery scar I had and how horrible it looked, the first of many to come. I was sitting on the bed crying, he came and knelt beside me and lifted my head up and said you stop that crying. I couldn't it was just too much, I mean I am not pretty to begin with and everything added takes that much more away from me. He bent down and kissed the 9 inch scar that runs sideways on my tummy and said Cookie I love that scar. I gasped and said how can you? He said I love this scar and any scars to come, because it makes you well and lets me keep you one day longer.
I pray every night that tomorrow he will still love me enough to think I am worth the trouble and I pray every day that love really is blind.
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