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My Turn
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From The Asian Reporter, V32, #9 (September 5, 2022), page 7.
A
difficult pill to swallow
Your honor, in my defense, I’ve never said my wife is ridiculous.
By my actions, it may seem like I think my wife is ridiculous, but point of fact, I have never said my wife is ridiculous.
With your permission, your honor, let me please try to explain myself.
My wife Maya and I have been married for more than 30 years. She is a beautiful, smart, accomplished woman. It goes without saying that I see myself as the luckiest man alive that I’m the one who gets to spend the rest of my life with her.
Having said that, as two unique individuals, there are times when we don’t always see eye to eye.
The main exhibit: Ginseng pills, a root used in various Asian countries for centuries for medicinal purposes.
My lovely wife is convinced that taking ginseng pills boosts the immune system to help prevent people from getting sick or to rapidly get us back to tip-top health when recovering from an illness. Your honor, I must confess that I don’t share the same beliefs when it comes to these ginseng pills.
Every time I sneeze or clear my throat, for sure Maya is soon walking towards me with about 8 to 10 ginseng pills. She hands them to me and promptly says, "Take these." I usually reply by saying, "I’m not sick. I don’t want them." Without looking at me, she drops the ginseng pills in my hand, says "take ’em," and walks away.
Your honor, I do take them, but I do it in silent protest.
Before dinner, she hands me another handful of the pills. "Take them," she says.
I say, "I don’t want them. I’m not sick." Then I say, "Why should I take another round of these pills when they don’t do anything?"
Your honor, let me clarify my last statement. I didn’t actually say the ginseng pills don’t do anything — I WAS thinking it very intensely.
Actually, what I think I really say is, "We’re having ginseng tea tonight. I’m good."
Another 8 pills down the hatch.
So, let me get to the day in question, your honor. Maya recently came up to me with the following request: "Could you go to the store and pick up more ginseng pills? We are all out of them."
I reply, "OK," but what she doesn’t know is that my "OK" really means (in code that only I know), "Do I have to go out and spend money on pills that don’t do anything?"
Silently, I believe I made my point.
Later that afternoon after arriving home, I place a bag with three bottles of the aforementioned ginseng pills on her desk.
A few minutes later, she walks up holding the three bottles of pills.
Maya: You need to return these ginseng pills to the store. They’ve expired.
Me (looking at the expiration stamp on the bottle): No they haven’t. They don’t expire until 2026.
Maya: They’ve expired. There are brown dots on the pills and they taste bad.
Me: How do you know what they’re supposed to taste like? These aren’t flavored children’s vitamins. They’re ginseng pills. If anything, they should taste like ginseng!
Maya: They’re a bad batch. You need to return them.
Me: I don’t even know what I’m supposed to tell the store! They don’t expire until 2026, but you say they taste bad even though they’re not flavored ginseng pills!!! Why don’t YOU return them?
Maya: I can’t. I’m sick.
Me (5 seconds pass, then I exclaim): AHHH HAAAAA!!!!!
Your honor, maybe I yelled "ah ha!" a little too loudly, and for that, I’m guilty. And I’d love to tell you what we talked about next, but I honestly don’t remember.
The last thing I do remember was returning those pills.
Humor writer Wayne Chan lives in the San Diego area; cartoonist Wayne Chan is based in the Bay Area.
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