Take My Wife, Please! Pt. 01

Jaime smiled.

"You'd like me to be nudist, wouldn't you?" she inquired. "Okay, I'll keep an open mind, if it makes you happy. I've always secretly wanted to go around without any clothes on anyway. It's the way God made us."

I smiled back, and went outside to get the heavy silver mug from the car. As I picked it up, I was once again, impressed by the sheer heft of the thing. I examined it more closely, and saw that it had a dull gray color to it. I pressed my thumbnail across the base and it left a slight scratch. This thing wasn't silver, it was pewter. No wonder it was so damned heavy!

Modern pewter isn't actually real pewter anymore; it's pure tin, just like solder, due to regulations on toxicity. Old pewter, however, like old solder, was an amalgamate of mostly lead, with a little tin for hardness, just like cast bullets. Lyman #2 lead bullets aren't really lead; they're actually an 80/20 mix, which also happens to be almost identical to original pewter.

A flood of thoughts filled my head, as I carried the heavy mug back inside. Jaime was waiting for me in all of her gorgeous unclothed glory, and held her hand out with a smile.

"Oh, thank you!" she gushed, as she reached for the toxic vessel.

I held it tightly in my hand, and she looked puzzled.

"Why won't you give it to me?" she inquired. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, Sweetheart." I said gently. "You haven't said or even done anything wrong at all. And I mean AT ALL. How long have you had this mug?"

Jaime thought for a moment.

"Joey got it for me at the Renaissance Faire two years ago last fall," she replied, "why?"

"And when did you start forgetting things again?" I pressed.

"I think I told you before, about a year and a half ago."

"And you've been using this for a coffee mug the whole time?"

"Yes!" she burst out in an exasperated tone. "Why?!"

"Because this thing is made out of pewter." I explained. "You said it's an antique, and I can see by the color and softness of the metal that it is. This thing is essentially a lead mug, and all of the acidity in the coffee has been leaching the lead into said coffee for the past two years.

"You're not stupid - as I have said - and you don't have a brain tumor either, Jaime. I think you have an acute case of lead poisoning, and Joey gave it to you, whether he realized it or not. Thank God, he gave YOU to ME, and not someone else who didn't care enough to look at something as simple as pouring coffee into a lead mug."

Jaime seemed stunned.

"What?!" she exclaimed.

"I don't think he did it on purpose," I continued, "because he would have also known that any lead in your system would get into the baby's as well. I don't think he had any idea that putting coffee into that mug was making you sick. The Romans used to boil wine in lead containers to make a sweet sauce they used for cooking, and they had no idea they were actually causing their own demise.

"You see, lead is sweet, and they had no idea that the deliciously sweet/tart sauce they were cooking all of their food in was deadly. The acid in the wine leached the lead oxide into the food they were eating, and they all slowly went insane. They've proven that is why Caligula was such a raving lunatic and murderous maniac. It also kept them from having healthy kids. Didn't Joey say that David is acting autistic or something?"

"Yes!" Jaime burst out. "Oh my god, Jack! He must have been getting it from my breast milk like you said! I was poisoning my own son!"

"Well, we know that now, so first thing in the morning, I'm going to take you to the doctor for tests to see how much lead you have in your system. Once it's confirmed, I'll let Joey know so that he can get the baby tested. Won't he feel like an ass when he finds out he's the one responsible for all of this, and not you."

"Jack," Jaime said with with a lot of trepidation in her voice, "Joey bought one for himself too. He's been using it to drink his Coke at work!"