Sorry, Speed Dial

On a long trip, all your wife will want to do it blab blab blab. Why not turn that blabbing on to someone else? Your wife still gets a chance to share her thoughts, but you don’t have to be involved. The question is, “How do I convince my wife to talk to someone else?” Good question. Certainly your wife will be anxious to talk to you since you are now stuck in the car with her instead of being busy at work. I am prepared to provide a simple yet effective solution. This requires a cell phone and a quick hand.

1. Get your cell phone before the trip and preset 5-10 of her family members’ and friends’ numbers in your speed dial
2. Secure the phone in the car. Make sure it is close by so you can grab it without your wife noticing
3. Slyly begin to call down the list of her friends and family.
4. Wait until you hear someone pick up and then shout, “I think someone is on the phone?”
5. Answer and tell the person you bumped their number by mistake, but state, “Why don’t you talk to my wife for a minute. We’re just on a road trip and have plenty of time.”
6. Hand the phone to your wife

Obviously you will still hear your wife talking. If this is still too much, bring along your iPod, put the headphones on, and enjoy a few songs your wife don’t usually let you listen to. You can only get away with this a few times, so save it for emergency situations.

Books Can Be Useful

During our recent trip my wife and I drove all over the place. We went from Virginia to New Jersey, back to Virginia, back up to New Jersey, up to Niagara Falls, down to Pittsburgh, and then back to Virginia. Thanks to construction and mis-hearing the GPS instructions a few times, we spent 25 hours driving. Luckily we had our friends with us for one of the legs, but my wife and I were alone for the other 21 hours of the trip. The trip to Niagara and Pittsburgh was somewhat last minute, so I wasn’t prepared for a long trip in the car. By prepared I don’t mean having snacks, music, books, and other things to do – I mean mentally prepared. I don’t have exact calculations, but I spent at least 4 hours answering questions like, ‘Why did you marry me?” “What do you like about me?” I spent another 2-4 hours listening to my wife cry because I somehow couldn’t figure out the correct answers to her questions. If I only had that paper with my preset answers.

It was this experience that inspired this month’s quick tip series: How to survive a car trip when you are trapped alone with your wife.

The best idea is to get your wife a book so she can occupy herself in the car. My wife has been reading some weirdo book series about vampire teenagers. She brought one of the books in the series with us and read it when she got bored with the baseball games or when there was some down time during the day. Unfortunately she didn’t have it in the car for most of the trip, so I had to be the entertainment. Be sure to get a book that she will enjoy, that is easy to read, and that will last the duration of the trip. NOTE: If your wife gets motion sickness in the car, be sure to get some medicine, otherwise reading will not be an option. ANOTHER NOTE: Try to avoid a sappy love story about high school vampires. There’s only so much you will be able to take as your wife recounts each chapter.