Bats & Bugs

There I was, innocently driving to Ladies Bible Study, when a giant vampire bat suddenly flung itself against my window!

It beat its wings rapidly across my entire window shield, going side to side along with my window wipers. I screamed out loud for a full minute before realizing it was NOT a bat.

Instead, my wiper blade had become entangled in a branch, unsnapped, and went all bat-like crazy on the windshield.

Eventually, I stopped screaming long enough to pull in to a Road Ranger. It was raining pretty hard, so I knew I couldn’t drive home without my window wipers. So, I did the only thing a helpless female could do…called my big, strong husband.

My big, strong husband was in the process of taking a fizzy bubble bath in the Jacuzzi when he got my call.

After ten futile minutes of trying to talk me through how to fix it, the result being me rapping the wiper against the window and saying, “It’s not fixed yet,” he finally decided to climb out of the hot tub and come to my rescue.

After getting re-dressed and driving the 15 miles into Rockford, he simply snapped the wiper back on and looked at me.

I have to say I expected a certain amount of derision. Sort of, “You called me all the way down here for THAT?” or “Seriously, was that SO hard?”

Instead, he got this little smirk on his face.

“What?” I asked him as the rain soaked though our clothes and showered our hair.

“I like coming to your rescue,” he said simply. Then he kissed me.

I mean, he didn’t just kiss me. He KISSED me. You know - that passionate-take-your-breath-away kissing. In the middle of a rainy gas station parking lot. While we were soaked to the bone.

Whew! Took me by complete surprise.

I guess sometimes guys just like feeling like GUYS. Being the big man, the white knight riding in to save the day.

While I usually eschew the antiquated idea that women need to be saved from anything (i.e. we can save ourselves just fine, thank you), I have to say that it was nice (in this case, anyway) to be rescued. Throw a little romance in there, and wowser! I’m sort of thinking of running out of gas in the middle of nowhere and seeing where that leads.

Of course, even big, strong husbands have their flaws.

For instance, my 6’4” husband is afraid of spiders.

I don’t mean he runs away from spiders shrieking and screaming like a little girl.

Instead, he tries to get me to kill the spider by making comments like, “Oh, look! There’s a spider.” Hon, did you see that spider?” or my favorite, “Spider! Spider! Honey! There’s a spider.”

If I refuse to kill the spider (I don’t particularly care for them myself), and he’s feeling brave, he will attempt to kill the spider.

Now, I might ask the women out there – how do you kill a spider?

Take a tissue.
Blot the spider to death.
Crumple the tissue.
Place it in the trash.

My husband’s version runs more like:

Study spider for a full minute (as though spider is begging for its life).
Tell wife about spider.
Hope wife will kill spider.
Express disappointment wife doesn’t want to kill spider.
Pick up wife’s devotional book.
Fling book (from a safe distance) in general direction of spider.
Half-kill spider.
Use Size 16 flip-flops to whack spider to full-death.
Ignore wife’s complaints about spider guts on her book.
Feel like a real man now that spider is dead with fragments spattered all over the wall.

The man will ride through rain, snow, and sleet to come to my rescue – but just ask him to kill a spider!