Grumpy Humphrey's Easy Wife

"There's a really swell economics book that I have on reserve and I'm hoping it's been returned so I can get an A plus on that really interesting essay you set for us yesterday," said Sue-Ellen.

Tommy looked at his watch. "Is that the time? Oh golly gee, guess we'd better get to the library, or we won't have enough time to do all the study we need. Again, sorry we can't stop to help you clean up your yard. See you at school, Mr. Grim."

"Yes, see you at school," said Bobby, Donny, Judy and Sue-Ellen in unison.

With that, Tommy and the other teenagers climbed into the car and drove away, all giving their teacher a wave as they went down the street, this simple act Humphrey Grim seeing as yet another act of provocation. The teacher stood in his driveway fuming, his face red, scowling at Tommy's car as it vanished around a corner.

"Useless, lazy no good punks," growled Humphrey wondering how he was going to find the time to clean up all this mess and knowing that he could never prove who was responsible, while in his chest his heart was pounding so hard it was putting him in danger of cardiac arrest.

Incandescent with rage, Humphrey strode back towards his house, slamming open the front door. "Stupid little slackers, never raised right like so many kids today, they should learn some goddamn discipline and respect like I did when I was at school," he stormed as he mounted the stairs.

It was true. Aged 12 Humphrey and his two younger brothers, twins aged 10, along with some other boys had been messing around and causing trouble at school. The principal had caned all of them with six of the best for each boy. When Humphrey and his brothers returned home from school, their furious mother had demonstrated that the wooden spoon had another purpose than stirring cooking. And when the boys' father came home from work and learned of his sons' misbehavior at school, he administered his own discipline with his belt, both the end without and the end with the buckle, Humphrey earning several extra strokes of his father's belt as he was the eldest and should have known better. He learned a lesson that day that made him a better person for sure.

But now more than 30 years later Humphrey Grim doubted kids like Tommy, Bobby, Donny, Judy and Sue-Ellen could even spell the word discipline or use it in a sentence, let alone having encountered it in their lives. It was a changing world, and not for the better.

Often Humphrey felt very old, much older than his 48 years. For example, a week from today America would elect a new president and regardless of whether the winner was Republican Richard Nixon or Democrat John. F Kennedy, for the first time there would be a president born in the 20th century taking over in the Oval office from the current president Mr. Eisenhower. And that both Nixon and Kennedy were younger than Mr. Grim - albeit by just one year in the case of Nixon - it only made Humphrey Grim feel like one of the dinosaurs the awful kids were supposed to learn about in biology.

Reaching the top of the stairs, his wife was nowhere in sight. "Lorraine, Lorraine!" he called out.

He heard his wife's reply. "I'm in the bathroom, Humphrey."

Humphrey strode over to the closed and locked bathroom door. "Lorraine, guess what those no-good kids at school did to the front of our house last night?"

Lorraine's voice was again audible. "Humphrey, I'm sure that there's thousands of things that the kids from your school could have done last night that I could list, but I'm using the bathroom. Do you think your guessing game could wait until I'm not sitting on the toilet with my panties around my ankles?"

"Okay, I'll wait, but you won't believe it until you see it," grumbled Humphrey.

"I'm sure I'll be surprised," Lorraine replied.

Humphrey went into their bedroom, grabbed his cigarettes and an ashtray and lit one up, hoping the nicotine in the smoke he inhaled into his lungs would relieve his stress and anger. He sat on the bed smoking for the next five minutes, the house completely quiet apart from the intermittent sounds of Lorraine unwinding toilet paper from the roll. Finally, Humphrey heard Lorraine flush the toilet, then the taps running as his wife washed her hands.

Stubbing out his cigarette butt, Humphrey was back outside the bathroom door as Lorraine opened the bathroom door and emerged, his wife barefoot and adjusting her panties through the knee-length white nightdress and the bath robe of the same length she wore.

Many times when other people were introduced to Mr. Humphrey and Mrs. Lorraine Grim, they would have to summon all their reserves of politeness not to express the question 'how is she with him?' on their faces.

Lorraine Grim at 32 was over 16 years younger than her husband, and a slim, stunningly beautiful blue-eyed blonde with the face of an angel. Lorraine was like a human designed by God as an example of what a perfect woman should look like, from her long blonde hair all the way down her perfectly proportioned five foot five body to her perfect feet. That Lorraine looked several years younger than her actual age, and Humphrey looked several years older than his 48 years made there seem an even greater age gap between the spouses than there actually was.

"So Humphrey, what was the problem that was so bad that you felt the need to disturb me while I was using the toilet?" Lorraine asked, walking on her bare feet to the bedroom where she got her own cigarettes, lighting one up and inhaling the smoke.

Humphrey laughed bitterly. "Come outside dear, and I will show you what those bastards from school did this time."

Lorraine followed Humphrey downstairs, and upon opening the front door she was struck by the smell of the horse manure and rotten eggs. "Phew, what's that smell?" she asked.

Humphrey pointed at the manure. "Use your eyes Lorraine, the thing that smells is that horse manure in our driveway. Or perhaps it's not that horse manure. Perhaps it's that pile there? Or maybe the horse shit over there." Humphrey indicated the third pile of horse excrement in the garden. "And the other smell that's the rotten eggs that they threw at the house."

"Did they toilet paper the garden too?" Lorraine asked, looking at the toilet paper that had been used to decorate the trees and bushes.

Humphrey sighed. "No Lorraine, I did it this morning myself just to annoy you. Of course they did it."

"Well don't snap at me Humphrey, I didn't do it," Lorraine shot back, glaring at her husband. She looked at the house where the 'Humphrey the Homosexual' series of drawings had been placed.

Humphrey watched his wife as she sucked on her cigarette while looking at the 'art' and was most dismayed when she began to laugh. "You think this is funny Lorraine?" he blustered.

"It looks just you, whoever did this did a good job," his wife pointed out, indicating the drawing of her husband offering candy to children in the playground.

"Of course it looks like me!" stormed Humphrey. "That's why it's such a problem!"

"Humphrey, calm down," said Lorraine, taking a final puff on her cigarette and putting out the butt. "Do you know who did this?"

"Of course I know who did it, some seniors, three of the jocks from my economics class Tommy, Bobby and Donny, that's who did it," growled Humphrey. "Useless slackers. Oh, and two girls Judy and Sue-Ellen. They all drove by this morning to gloat about it."

"Can you prove it?" Lorraine asked.

"Well um, I um, ah ..." Humphrey's voice trailed off, and again his face went the color of a beetroot. "I don't need to prove it, I know they are responsible for this."

"I'm afraid the police and your boss the principal won't see it that way Humphrey," his wife pointed out.

"Thank you for your input and support as usual Lorraine," said Humphrey. "I thought your job in the legal practice was to be a secretary who types, takes down shorthand, answers phone calls, makes coffee and looks pretty. I didn't realize you were an attorney too now Lorraine, my apologies."

Lorraine glared at her husband. "Don't start on me Humphrey." She pointed at the manure. "You know you'll need to move that horse shit so we can get the car out this morning?"

Humphrey put his hand to his head, his reply dripping with sarcasm. "Oh golly Lorraine, I am so silly, I didn't even think of that. I thought it would be okay for me to reverse the goddamn car up over that mound."

"Well, there's a lot of manure and you have a lot to get moved, so I suggest that you make a start if we aren't going to be late for work," said Lorraine. The young woman turned on her bare feet to go back inside.

"And where are you going Lorraine?" demanded Humphrey. "Back inside to paint your face and do your hair while I shovel up this crap?"

Lorraine sighed as she reached for another cigarette. "Humphrey, relax, I'm just going to get dressed and then I will clean up the rotten eggs, okay?"

Humphry did not answer, the misanthropic man heading for his garage, grumbling and complaining under his breath.

"Oh, and Humphrey?" came his wife's voice, to which Humphrey turned around.

"Make sure you get rid of that. If people see it they might get the wrong idea and call the police to come and arrest you." Lorraine pointed at the 'Humphrey the Homosexual' drawings.

"Thank you again for pointing out the obvious Lorraine." Humphrey, scowling and growling, went to the windows and angrily tore down the 'Humphrey the Homosexual' pictures, throwing them into the trash. Going into the garage, Humphrey retrieved a pitchfork and shovel and set to work shoveling horse shit away from the driveway. A few minutes later Lorraine, attired in a white swing-style dress with pink and purple floral print that came down to her knees, her bare feet now clad in white shoes, emerged with disinfectant. She took the garden hose and set to work getting rid of the rotten eggs.

"Cheer up Humphrey, think about all the free manure you have to put on your roses now," said Lorraine, unable to keep from smirking at her grouchy spouse as he shoveled away some horse shit with a face that looked like a thunderstorm about to explode.

"You sound like Sue-Ellen, she said the exact same thing," grumbled Humphrey.

The sight of a man wearing a suit and shoveling manure was an unusual one, and did not go unnoticed by people who were walking or driving by, on their way to school, work or college. Many of them laughed at Humphrey Grim as they went by, making him angrier still.

Next door lived the Goldstein family, the parents Abraham and Rose and their 19-year-old son David who went to college and a daughter Ruth who was in her mid-teens and a sophomore at the high school where Humphrey taught. All four members of the Goldstein family were in their driveway, and looked in amazement at the strange sight of their neighbor seemingly doing gardening in a suit.

"Good morning," said Humphrey to his neighbors, trying to appear normal as he toiled away and sweated to remove the manure so he could back his automobile out of the garage.

"Good morning," said the Goldstein family uncertainly and in unison, wondering not for the first time if they were neighbors with a maniac.

Ruth Goldstein looked at her teacher's grumpy expression, and knew that the history class taught by Humphrey Grim this morning would be a long one. Ruth and her friends did not mess around like some of the other students in her year who were always trying to emulate the seniors whose main goals in life were to drive 'Grumpy Humphrey' into a lunatic asylum, but she wasn't a fan of Mr. Grim and his teaching methods. Mr. Grim's main teaching strategy was to write vast amounts of notes on the blackboard for the class to copy, set copious amounts of homework, and he was grouchy, negative and unapproachable when students had any sort of query.

The other Friday somebody had snuck into the classroom and drawn a pictures of a lemon, a plus sign, a cat, an equals sign then a stick figure with 'Grumpy Humphrey' underneath it. Calling Mr. Grim a sourpuss was not designed to impress the man and had just this effect. After many attempts to get the culprit or culprits to confess to no avail, Humphrey Grim set the class so much homework due in first period Monday that Ruth had to start it on Friday afternoon and had barely finished it by the time the clock struck nine o'clock Sunday evening.

Finally, the large pile of manure was gone from the driveway and Lorraine had cleared up the rotten eggs. "We can't do much about the other manure or the toilet paper this morning, we'll have to go to work or we'll be late," Lorraine said.

Her husband nodded in acknowledgement, and after a short delay as Lorraine put on her makeup and did her hair, the spouses grabbed a quick bowl of cereal each and set off for work. Lorraine Grim was seated in the passenger seat of the car and Humphrey in the driver's seat, his grouchy expression unchanged from when he was removing the horse manure.

"Are you sure you aren't cold dear?" Humphrey mumbled, noticing that his wife wore only a white, lightweight jacket over her floral dress, the buttons open at the front.

"No Humphrey, I'm fine," Lorraine replied.

Humphrey's question was not out of concern for his wife, but a veiled criticism of her attire today, with Lorraine's dress displaying the shape of her C-cup breasts very clearly. Even through the fabric of the dress and the white cotton of her brassiere it could be seen how cold Lorraine was, but Humphrey knew his shameless flirt of a wife liked men to admire her breasts.

This morning was a perfect example. They had to stop at the gas station, and Lorraine shamelessly flirted with the two good-looking young attendants there as usual, Miguel the Latino guy who filled up the gas tank and Leroy, the young African-American man who washed the windshield and checked the oil and water. Lorraine was in her element with the attention she was getting, especially her boobs, and the two young men were hardly discrete even with her husband right there. And to add insult to injury, Humphrey had to tip them, before they went on their way. Humphrey could only ponder how much Lorraine flirted with Miguel and Leroy when she was driving alone and he was not there.

Humphrey had seen his wife flirt with other men too, often when she wanted something, and never bothered if her husband was there. A few weeks ago, the police had stopped them when Lorraine was driving, Humphrey in the passenger seat when Lorraine (as was often the case) slowed down but failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. A bit of flirting with the two young male cops and she was let off with a warning rather than being written a ticket.

Contrast this with Humphrey's own experience a month or so before this, where he was so stressed by the antics of his students that he allowed his automobile to drift and ran over a road cone, of course with a police car right behind him. Immediately the lights and siren came on, and Humphrey Grim was pulled over by a stern, humorless police officer about his age and a younger cop who just stood there with a vacant look on his face. The older cop had given Humphrey a strict lecture about his poor driving and issued him with a ticket, telling him that he should set a better example to his daughter, the police officer indicating Lorraine who sat in the passenger seat. This was like rubbing salt into the wounds, Humphrey hated it when people thought that he and Lorraine were father and daughter rather than husband and wife.

Fortunately Humphrey and Lorraine did not encounter any cops as they drove the short way to the bus stop so Lorraine could catch her bus into the city, and from there a cable car to the office where she worked. Lorraine could catch a bus from near their house to this stop, but as it was on the way to school it was easier for her husband to drive her to this stop rather than her changing buses.

"So I'll see you when I get home tonight," said Lorraine.

"Actually, I'll be late home," said Humphrey. "I've got to supervise detention hall for two hours after school." He could feel the dread coursing through his body even as he told his wife.

"Well, I'll see you later then." With that Lorraine collected her purse and exited the vehicle, no goodbye, no kiss not even a friendly wave, Lorraine simply shut the car door and walked towards the bus stop and lighting up a cigarette without a backwards glance.

Humphrey paused only to light up his own cigarette before driving away, thinking about his ever troublesome wife. He could have handled it if Lorraine was only flirty, but he knew that his wife was far more than a flirt.

Thinking about how he and Lorraine met, Humphrey wished he had remembered the term 'caveat emptor' and the adage when something appears too good to be true then it usually is. While not Hollywood movie star material like Clark Gable, Humphrey was far from ugly but for some reason the young ladies stayed away from him. His younger twin brothers and two sisters, one older and one younger, had no trouble finding spouses and starting their families, but Humphrey was left on the shelf and seemed set to become the male equivalent of a single spinster or old maid.

Humphrey had no better luck with the ladies while serving in the US Army during the war. Normally an American military uniform acted like an aphrodisiac for young ladies, back at home in the states and in the Australian city of Melbourne, where Humphrey's platoon spent some time. But while the other GI's, marines, US airman and US Navy officers and sailors were fighting off eager young women, for Humphrey the Australian girls kept their panties - or their knickers as the Aussie girls called their underpants - on and up. The only sex Humphrey got while in the army and stationed in Australia was sex that he paid for in a brothel. And even there, the girl looked like she would rather be anywhere else but with him.

Returning to the States at the end of the war, and Humphrey's luck with the ladies had not changed, until 1949 when he got a letter to advise that he had been called up for jury duty in the summer. Initially Humphrey was a bit dismayed about the prospects of spending his summer vacation in a stuffy courtroom, but changed his mind when a pretty young blonde with big blue eyes wearing a nice green dress and matching hat took her place in the jury box next to him. Humphrey was blown away. Was the young blonde woman a live-sized doll created by a toymaker as an example of a perfect woman that had come to life? Perhaps she was an angel? Whatever the case, given his life to date and lack of luck with women, Humphrey doubted she would give him the time of day.

To his great surprise, Humphrey was completely wrong in his assumptions. The pretty young blonde was named Lorraine and she was chatty and very friendly with him, flirty even. The court case was for two weeks, and Humphrey wished it would last longer so he could spend more time with the pretty young blonde. To his amazement, Lorraine wanted to spend time with him too, and before the year 1949 was over Humphrey was even more amazed after a whirlwind courtship to find himself standing in a registry office exchanging vows with this beautiful young blonde before two witnesses.

Humphrey could not believe his luck. All these long years alone, accepting that this would probably be the way things always would be and he would never get married and have children and it had finally happened. True he was 37 and turning 38 next year, but better late than never. Finally he had a woman who he could call his wife, and there was a woman who referred to him as her husband.

It was only when they had been married a month or so that Humphrey found out the real reason why Lorraine might have been so eager to get so married quickly. Lorraine seemed to enjoy spending money, the problem was that she didn't have as much money to spend as she liked. So Lorraine simply wrote out checks knowing that she did not have the funds to cover them, bouncing a dozen checks in all. And now they were married, Lorraine's debts became Humphrey's responsibility.