Tomatotopia

Potted Tomato Plant

Many years ago, my wife, Christine, and I were renting a house from an elderly couple. The Jhertzes were a "pleasant" couple that lived next door. Everything we did in our rented house needed to be approved by the landlords. When Christine wanted a vegetable garden, the Jhertzes, after careful consideration, said,


"No."

Eventually, Christine negotiated one pot that could be placed by the back door of our little rented house. Christine quickly honed in on the advantages of a potted versus an earthbound garden. We wouldn’t have to actually garden, that is, get down on our hands and knees in the dirt. We wouldn’t be bothered with weeding, that tiresome job of removing all the indigenous plant growth.

Christine went on at length over the joys of flavorful, vine ripened, red tomatoes. How stupendous they are in salads and sandwiches, what a great and healthy snack they make, how much better they are than those pink golf balls one purchases at the grocery store, the endless amount of sauce we would certainly make. We were sure that the volume of tomatoes would overwhelm us by July’s end, forcing us to empty our refrigerator of superfluous food items like milk and eggs to make room for the hordes of tomatoes which would soon be pumped out of the pot by the back door. She could hardly wait.

Admittedly, I was less enthusiastic. Even less when we were shopping for dirt. First stop was the local nursery in search of the right type of potting soil for our spoiled little plant. We needed two types per my father’s recommendations. My father had been gardening since the dawn of time. He was the gardener in Eden. I have always held the belief that the first plant life on earth was introduced by my father in his backyard garden. With decades of experience tilling the soil, Christine certainly counted on his guidance for her project. He carefully explained to us what type of dirt we needed to acquire, the consistency, the contents, the density, the atomic weight. Christine listened enthusiastically. I was thinking that dirt couldn’t be too expensive since after all, it was pretty much everywhere.

After picking out a little plastic bag of dirt, we moved onto the pot. The dude at the nursery selected two options for Christine who sized each up carefully before making her informed selection. We didn't want the plant to become "root bound" in its plastic prison. We had also been advised to purchase tomato plant food, the equivalent of carbo-load for the tomato world. As far as I could tell, tomatoes eat red sugar. That's what tomato food looks like. I had visions of this enormous, caged tomato plant screaming, “Feed me, Seymour!” while I carefully slipped raw meat between the bars.

The last decision was what type of tomato plant we would pot. Our bank of greenery experts all agreed that the cherry tomato had the best chances of success. We bought a small cluster of four plants, and off we went. At home, we dumped the dirt into the pot in the correct volumetric dose as prescribed by the directions on the back of the dirt bag. We hollowed out a hole for the sprout, covered it with the mixture of Tomato Miracle Carbo Drink, locked down the cage, then sat back and waited for the bounty to overflow. I envisioned a veritable cornucopia of vegetables spilling forth upon my feet. I was certain that the soil was so rich and fertile, Christine would conceive if she stuck her finger in the pot.

Being in retirement, the Jhertzes were scholarly gardeners themselves. They gladly took the extra plants we bought under their care. Unlike our plant, their's went into the traditional ground where they would be embraced by Mother Earth. Mrs. Jhertz couldn’t help but offer a bit of challenge to us, suggesting that we ought to note whose plant produced the first green tomato. Christine is never one to back down from a challenge, especially one that doesn’t involve any effort on her part. She accepted the contest, confident that our superior, techno soil would make a bitch out of Mother Nature and her gritty brown earth.

Soon after the pot was christened, the growing advice began to flow unsolicited. Everyone knows not to ever talk about politics or religion, but conversing about how to grow tomatoes is completely acceptable in civilized society. Never before in my life did I receive such a stern and profuse collection of unsolicited bad advice then when we planted tomatoes in a pot. The first bit of sage tomatoes wisdom came in the form of watering recommendations. Christine's friend, Ricky, a square jawed jock, visiting one afternoon, informed me that I was watering too much.

"The roots are gonna rot," he declared.

Ricky is a dumbass, who I think pines away for Christine although she claims they're just friends. I backed off the watering anyway. Apparently, I also used too much plant food. I fed the tomato plant every time I was hungry, which back then was like every twenty minutes. The mailman told me,

"You're gonna burn the roots."

So I cut the plant chow as well. In a few short weeks, the little tomato plant turned yellow. I was no expert gardener, and the internet wasn't widely accessible in those days, but I figured something was wrong. I made what I didn't know at the time was my last trip to a public library. There I read in a book on gardening that a dwindling, yellow plant needs water. So I decided to go back to watering and feeding the plant a lot. Mrs. Jhertz scolded me sternly, but I figured she was just trying to win our little neighborly contest. I wouldn't put it past her to dump Drano in the pot in the middle of the night.

So I watered more often and the plant responded with a growth surge so evident that I swear you could see it sprouting. By days end, the height difference from morning was readily notable. I thought if I stayed there quietly I could hear the plant growing as is often said about corn during hot summers. I imagined rows and rows of corn in our backyard, each stalk in a single pot of potent, dark soil and me tending to the crops in the back 40 buckets.

As the plant grew, the notion of extended sunlight was offered by one of Christine's colleagues who suggested that since our tomato plant was in a pot, I ought to move it to geographically superior positions throughout the day in order maximize the exposure to the sun. It seemed like a good idea at the time. This would certainly give us the edge over the earth bound plants we gave the Jhertzes. Each afternoon, I shifted the plant to a clearing open to the sky until sunset. It was as though the plant was retiring to the backyard for the remains of the day. I continued shifting the plant to its afternoon positions until it grew tentacles, which rooted into the ground.

As unfettered photosynthesis fueled the miracle of unbridled growth, the plant easily exceed the confines of the cylindrical cage now supporting an abundance of branches reaching forth to scoop up the morning sun. We had plenty of impressive foliage, but the plant lacked any actual tomatoes. My father insisted that bees were not pollinating our tomato bush. He advised that we drag the plant near the Jhertz's garden to take advantage of the ample bees, busy pollinating the various victory vegetation.

Many Tomatoes

As I contemplated this, I was concerned that the plant was gripping the ground. I tried to pry the branches free. I was also concerned that I might be stung by the many bees that tended the tiny yellow flowers. It took me some effort and time to realize that bees were obviously not an issue. Mrs. Jhertz insisted that the extensive foliage on our plant was preventing any tomatoes. She instructed us to cut off the "suckers" which sprouted in all directions from the top of the plant.

"You won't get any fruit," she authoritatively declared.

As I approached the plant in the pot with a pair of scissors, bend on giving it a haircut, I paused as I looked over the potted tomato bush before me.

"What's the matter?" Christine asked.

"I'm not gonna do this," I answered.

"You have to cut off the suckers, or we won't get any tomatoes," she instructed.

"I think the plant knows what it's doing," I responded.

"We won't get any fruit," Christine warned.

True, I didn't think we would get bananas, but I wasn't going to cut back that plant.

"Leaves are important," I surmised, "the more leaves, the more sunlight, the more tomatoes."

"But the suckers!" Christine chimed.

"The only suckers are us," I exclaimed.

I looked down in amongst the mass of foliage to find a cluster of green tomatoes. Mrs. Jhertz approached.

"We have green tomatoes!" Christine triumphantly exclaimed.

"So do we," Mrs. Jhertz responded.

The first green tomatos must have arrived late at night, on little cat feet, rendering the victor undecided. Unhesitatingly, Mrs. Jhertz offered to extend the challenge to the first red tomato. Christine had done so well in the preliminaries that she committed us to the contest without any discussion. At this point, I had a laissez faire attitude towards our potted, tomato plant. I would give it all the water and plant food it could hope for while letting it spread it wings and fly. And fly it did.

One morning, Christine went outside to check the plant. She returned with fifty red tomatoes a week ahead of Mrs. Jhertz. Mrs. Jhertz painstakingly fussed over her three tomato plants which she pruned incessantly. We had a tomato factory in bush form in a pot outside of our back door, and she had three spindly, stressed out plants, that all looked like they wanted to lay down due to a bad migraine. We quickly went up to one hundred cherry tomatoes a day. More than we could cope with.

Mrs. Jhertz would come over to our plant and stare at it for extended periods of time. I imagined she was trying to cope with the fact that she pruned her plants into submission. Christine would offer her our extra tomatoes, which she took because she grew up during the Great Depression, but this seemed to spawn a great depression with Mrs. Jhertz. It's hard to accept that you're wrong when you've been doing something the same way your whole life. I felt sorry for Mrs. Jhertz, especially after a mild cold spell dispatched her three sickly plants.

"You're gonna have to get rid of that plant soon," Mrs. Jhertz instructed.

"No, I'm going to just let it go for as long as it can," I explained.

This angered Mrs. Jhertz, not doing what she suggested. The yield began to slow down. First eighty a day, then before long, fifty, then twenty. The last tomatoes we ate at Thanksgiving when the tomato plant finally succumbed to the elements.

Jan 15, 2017

Today, we have a vegetable garden adjacent to our own home. Each year, I try to get the biggest, "hot house" tomato plants in the ground as early as possible to get a jump on the season. I decided to start my own tomato plants by seed inside under a window in January. My theory is that the seeds don't grow in the bag so get them in the soil as soon as possible. Everyone told me that it can't be done, that the seeds will rot, that there isn't enough sun, that they won't germinate until there is sufficient daylight, that they'll come up, then die.

I'm going to put the seeds in soil now, water them everyday, and give them all the plant food they can hope for because, in the end, I figure they know what they're doing...

Way more than me.

Editor's Note: It worked. Originally posted on February 2, 2017.

May 16, 2017

This year's crop. Mar 29, 2019




Coming and Going

Some time ago, my wife, Christine, and I were renting a house from an elderly couple who lived next door. The Jhertz were in their eighties and pleasant enough although a bit quirky, commensurate with their age. For example, they wanted us to put our garbage out the night before, not in the morning. Occasionally, when trash is out all night, animals prowling about scatter said garbage all over the street in search of tasty morsels. Even though the Jhertzes had to, every now and again, clean up the results of Rocky Raccoon's shopping spree, they insisted on nightly garbage positioning, so I obliged. After all, they were the landlords.

As the name implies, they were the lords of their land, and they let us know when we didn't comply with their feudal decree. One time, Mrs. Jhertz told me that when I park my car, I should back in like her. While I tried to placate her with how that was a good idea, but my car had blind spots which made backing up difficult, she was having no part of it. So now, I had to back in every night when I got home from work, and on Tuesday nights, I had to look out for the trash cans as I reversed up the short driveway.

All this irritated Christine. She wanted to tell Ole Lady Jhertz to mind her own business. She often referred to Mrs. Jhertz's decrees as "blue laws." It had nothing to do with outdated statutes. Mrs. Jhertz's hair was blue. I don't think it was intentional. I think she was colorblind or something because when she dyed her hair, it came out blue. I was drilling in the reserves during this stage of life, and my friend, Will, who was from out of town would stay with us on drill weekends. We were all in our thirties. Will had a wife and family. We caught up each month over dinner. It's not like we were up partying until the wee hours of the morn. Mrs. Jhertz stopped by one afternoon to inquire about the man who occasionally stayed with us.

"That's my friend, William. He's the Commanding Officer of my reserve unit."

I could see it on her face. Another decree was about to spew forth. I also could see Christine's expression as well. She was about to throw Old Blue out of her house.

"I talked to Mr. Jhertz, and your friend can stay only one night, not two," Mrs. Jhertz announced.

I agreed because although a monthly lease meant we could leave at a moments notice. It also meant the Jhertzes could toss us out in the same timeframe. Our rent was very inexpensive, considering we were in a two bedroom house, and we really didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, Christine was fuming. She was an up and coming executive for a Fortune 500 company with a sizable team of her own. Having to take inane orders from some old lady with blue hair was wearing thin. A few weeks later, Mrs. Jhertz was at our door again. Christine didn't let her in. They carried on their conversation through the screen. I prepared for the worst.

"You people are coming and going too much," Mrs. Jhertz informed.

"What do you mean?" Christine asked.

"All day long, you people leave then come back," she explained.

"That's because we live here," Christine reasoned.

"Well, you need to plan your day so you come and go only once."

"Plan my day?"

"Yes, if you people were better organized you would come and go only once."

I was half listening to the conversation. Christine isn't one to mince words. I figured at any moment she was going to tell the fossil at the door to try "going" herself. Instead, I heard the door quietly close.

"What did she want? Eat more fiber?" I asked.

"We're coming and going to much."

"Coming and going?"

"Yes, we now have one 'coming' and one 'going' per day."

"And you agreed to that?"

"What choice do we have?"

So for the next six months, we planned every excursion to ensure we complied with Ole Lady Smurf's "coming and going" edict or "CAG" as it came to be known. The worst part was on the weekends when we might want to go grocery shopping because we were out of food. If we spend our CAG on that, we couldn't go to the movies later in the day unless we hadn't any perishables. Or if friends dropped by and wanted us to go out, we had to inform them that we were not allowed to leave because I expended the CAG with a trip to the pharmacy earlier in the day. Sometimes, one of us was called into work on a weekend, which meant we spend our CAG on the man.

I took care not to violate any of Mrs. Jhertz 's rules. When I was coming, I backed in being careful not to run over the garbage the wildlife spread all over the driveway. It was a matter of time before I slipped up, and went out to get my car washed one Saturday morning. It was spring, and I wasn't aware that Christine had gone for a walk earlier in the morn. Technically, since she didn't actually use a car, Christine's "going" shouldn't have counted, but not being a lawyer I wasn't sure the legal precedent to invoke. When I pulled up I saw, the Blue Fairy at the door. Since I was already a real boy, I knew this wasn't going to be good.

For a moment, I thought I could just back over her as I maneuvered my car in reverse down the short driveway while dodging kitchen trash and recyclables. Mrs. Jhertz was gone when I got out of my car. Christine met me in the driveway.

"Let's go," she said.

"We can't. I already 'go-ed' today." I explained.

"We have some houses to look at," Christine noted.

Depending how you look at it, we came and went two, maybe three times that day. This was during the bull market of the 90's. Christine had taken all the money we saved, since our rent was so small, and put it in aggressive growth funds. She managed to squirrel away six figures. We bought our first house three weeks later. It was very freeing to be able to live in our own home. I pulled my car into the driveway anyway I felt. I put out the garbage in the morning. Each month, Will stayed with us for two whole days.

They say that you can't appreciate something until it's taken away. The best part of home ownership by far was the freedom to come and go as we pleased.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on December 15, 2016.

What Star Trek Got Wrong

I watched Star Trek when it originally aired on Thursday nights. I was five years old. I hadn't a clue what was going on in that show. My father, on the other hand, was transfixed by the series. I mostly ruined it for him by incessantly asking what was up with that guy's ears. Later when I learned the plots shadowed current events of the day, the warlike Klingons were sometimes said to be the North Koreans and the crafty Romulans were attributed to the former Soviets, I appreciated the edginess of Star Trek. The follow on series never matched the same intellectual level of the original which lasted only three years.

My trekie friends are always espousing what Star Trek got right. In accordance with today's mainstream journalistic standard practices, I would like to concentrate on what Star Trek got wrong.

Squelch

Kirk and Spock

Whenever Captain Kirk whipped out a communicator to hail the Enterprise, he would often twist a knob on the device. He fiddled away with the squelch while saying,

"Come in Enterprise."

Back in the late 1960s and all through to the 80s, electronic devices needed to be manually tuned. Car radios had a knob for tuning. There were a few preset buttons, but you had to acquire the station before you could set your faves.

Televisions had the UHF dial which stood for "ultra high frequency." After school, my sister and I would endlessly adjust that UHF knob trying to get a clear picture of channel 56 so we could watch Speed Racer and other lame cartoons. All the kid shows were on the UHF dial. I thought it stood for "you have fun." When VCRs first came out, you had to manually tune every station as part of the setup. Fortunately for us, we had less than twenty channels so even though it was a tedious task, it wasn't like today in which you have hundreds of stations that you never watch. Auto tuning made the set up and operation of just about any electronic device extraordinarily easy. In the 23rd century, Captain Kirk had to manually tune in the Enterprise.

Transporter

The Transporter

While the feasibility of the transporter is argued by physicists and heavy thinkers all over the globe, let's just assume it would work if they could get all the bugs worked out. The first thing never mentioned in Star Trek is the obvious medical benefits of teleportation. If they can break up your body into a bunch of elementary particles, beam them to another location, and put everything back together, then they certainly could filter out the particles you don't want like cancer, fat, or a cold virus. They could painlessly remove cataracts or a mole. Sure, traveling by teleportation would be wonderfully convenient, but it would be a great way to remove a tumor.

There was some tense scenes when Scottie almost lost crew members in the transporter. He would slide the levers up and down and press buttons trying to do something to the signal. I'm not sure what he was doing, but if that can happen, then forget teleportation. I'll just walk.

Language

It always bothered me that the aliens spoke English. How fortuitous. Imagine traveling light years, beaming down to a planet, running into some aliens, and they spoke French. Eight years of parochial school, and I wouldn't be able to communicate with them unless, of course, the aliens needed to conjugate the French word for "go."

Setting the Phasor to Stun

Crew Member
with a Phasor

Whenever an away party positioned themselves on the transporter, Captain Kirk usually announced the phasor setting. He would say,

"Set phasors to stun."

Everyone would look down at their drawn phasor and turn a little knob. That's it? That's all you have to do to change the setting from "kill" to "stun?" They should've had to pull the knob up a bit to get it on the kill setting. Maybe they should have to punch in a code. I'll bet they had a lot of incidents whereby someone had their phasor on "kill" when it should have been on "stun." Imagine Kirk and his team beaming down to a planet and encountering a menacing alien. They all shoot their phasors, thinking they're going to stun the dude, but one guy has his set incorrectly.

Kirk: "Which one of you assholes has a phasor set to kill?"

Chekov: "It was me, Cap-tin. Sorry."

Phasor Energy Requirement

Years ago, when I was taking a physics class in college, the professor was a big trekie. On a test, he had us calculate the amount of energy needed to separate two carbon atoms which was quite a lot. He then asked us to comment on the feasibility of the Star Trek phasor. The answer he was looking for was the energy requirement made the phasor impractical. My answer was along the lines that although the amount of energy required to separate two carbon atoms was significant, it's not necessary to kill someone. All you need to do is raise the surface temperature sufficiently high enough to burn a hole into their body, preferably through some vital organ or the head.

Set to "stun," the phasor knocked you on your ass. Set to "kill," and the target completely disappeared. However, tidy complete vaporization is, it's not likely that there would be sufficient energy to power a phasor set to "kill."

Everyone Was an Officer

There was 1,014 crew members on the Enterprise. Star Trek often modeled life aboard the starship like that of a sea going vessel. There was "away" parties and pipe calls when hailing someone. What the writers left out was the distinction between enlisted and officers. Chief O'Brien in Next Generation was the only enlisted dude I ever heard referenced. Sulu was a lieutenant although his job as a helmsman is typically performed by an enlisted member. Uhura was a lieutenant in the position of Chief Communication Officer. She was often the one actually running the communication equipment which likely would have been a subordinate. I also thought it was a bit sexist that the biggest roles for women on the show were a phone operator and a nurse, Christine Chapel, also an officer. She had a thing for Spock, the science officer. Even Kirk's yeoman, Janice Rand, was a Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Yeoman Duties

Yeoman Rand often brought food to Captain Kirk. She also made coffee for everyone on the bridge. In one episode, she ingeniously heats a pot of coffee with a phasor during a power outage. I wonder what phasor setting she used? Yeoman in the navy push paper, not food. The latter is the job of a mess specialist, and even so they don't fuss over the Captain's diet.

When I was pushing paper in the navy, I once needed one of those circle things used to repair the hole punched in a sheet of paper. I went into the Admin Department, and asked a first class yeoman for one. She said,

"We call those things paper assholes, sir."

Not to be outdone, I responded, "That's funny. That's what we call yeomen in the Admin Department."

Kirk's occasional interest in Yeoman Rand would have been considered fraternization, being a superior commissioned officer. Kirk got it on with aliens every so often so maybe a little human fraternization will be tolerated in the 23rd century.

Race

Star Trek was ahead of its time in the manner in which the storyline handled race. The bridge was very racially diversified. There was an African American woman, a gay Asian (although we didn't know it back then), a Russian and a Vulcan. Of course, the white male was in charge. The show even broke ground with the first on screen interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. If I remember the episode correctly, aliens forced them to do it, and Uhura cried. That's not my idea of racial equality, but, hey, it was 1968 so it was groundbreaking.

Combat

For all the advances in the 23rd century, there was an awful lot of hand to hand combat. You would think that superior weaponry would make it unnecessary to smack an alien on the head with something heavy, but don't underestimate the effectiveness of a big rock. Technological advancements also hadn't made much headway in the garment industry either since Kirk lost many a shirt standing his ground with aliens.

Questioning Orders

When things got tense on the bridge of the Enterprise, a lot of people second guessed the orders given by the officer in charge. Kirk commands,

"Lower the shields!"

Sulu spins around in his chair and exclaims,

"But Captain! Lowering the shield will blah, blah, blah..."

In the military, you don't question the orders given to you, especially in a combat scenario on the bridge of a fighting vessel. Sometimes when the Klingons got the upper hand, Kirk would blurt out,

"Evasive maneuvers!"

There is no order for a helmsmen to do whatever they want to get the ship out of danger. Commands are short and to the point, not open ended and subject to interpretation.

Away Teams

Away with You Team

Whenever they beam down to a hostile, alien planet, the away team always includes Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy. This is not very realistic even for the 23rd century. The captain generally stays with the ship, especially when it sinks. The First Officer doesn't leave either because he's there to take over if the Captain hands in his lunch pail. Why they would gun up "Bones" and send his crotchety ass along for a close encounter always puzzled me. The guy in the red shirt isn't long for this world or any others for that matter. He's the extra in the credits listed as "Dumbass Red Shirt Crewmember with a Phasor." He usually buys it shortly after beaming to the surface. Perhaps aliens like bulls are not fond of the color red.

Star Trek still enthralls new generations fifty years later. Movies today are often criticized for too much computer generated imagery and not enough good writing or plot elements. Considering how primitive the special effects were back then, it's a testament to the exemplary skill of the writers that Star Trek remains a relevant classic today.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on November 1, 2016.

The Secret Life of Chris

A few months ago, my wife and I were clearing out old clothing from a spare closet. We were tossing the articles we no longer wore into a pile when she encountered a maroon jacket with her name embroidered on the right side. We all know her by "Christine," but back in the day when she lived that other life, she was known as "Chris." She flung the jacket onto a chair. The writing on the back was clearly visible.

"Union Equestrian Team?" I read.

"Brings back memories," she said warmly.

"You never told me that," I exclaimed.

"It never came up."

You'd think after twenty years of marriage it would have surfaced just once. Maybe it could have come up years ago, on a date over dinner when I asked her what she liked to do.

"I was the president," she offered.

"President?" I asked.

"Yeah," she laughed.

"You never tell me anything," I issued.

"I forgot," she deflected.

If that was it, I wouldn't be so concerned, but the other day over dinner, we were talking about the small traveling circus that comes to our town when Christine said,

"I used to work for the circus."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, years ago," she answered.

Now, there are some questions men don't ever want to ask their wives, and I was about to ask one of them.

"What did you do in the circus?"

"I don't know. Lots of things," she answered.

"Like what, the trapeze?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"No, not that," she responded.

Men are supposed to be stoic. Woman are supposed to be from Venus. I thought at any moment now, my wife was going to tell me she'd already been there.

"Well, what did you do," I resumed, "you know, in the circus?"

"I worked in the ticket booth," she explained.

She seemed evasive. During moments like these, I think I'm talking to "Chris." That night, after everyone went to bed, I googled perhaps the oddest search of my life. I queried on my wife's maiden name and "flying trapeze." I fully expected to see pictures of a younger version of Christine swinging above the crowd, being snatched from the air by a muscular dude named "Karl," dangling upside down, standing on a tiny platform with her hand raised triumphantly, waving to the crowd below. The search yielded nothing. She probably had it all expunged when she took up with the CIA. The next morning before breakfast I sat her down and asked her to tell me everything.

"There isn't anything to tell," she offered, but I wasn't buying it. Later that day, Christine announced, "There is one thing."

What NASA astronaut? Oliver North aide? Hindenburg survivor? I braced myself for the reveal.

"I used to work in a prison," she declared.

"You were in prison! What did you do?" I asked concernedly.

"No, I worked there. I interned one summer. I did pressure drop calculations for the potable water supply to the sinks," she explained.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me, because now is the time? Caused a prison riot? Helped someone escape?" I asked.


 "No, that's everything," she assured.

A woman's heart is as deep as the ocean. I learned that from watching Titanic. You can never know everything about them, but I think after over twenty years and two children, my wife finally feels secure in our relationship to reveal her deepest, darkest secrets.

And when she tells me what they are, I'll let you know.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on November 10, 2016.