Type A personality deficit

‘Have you selected your squad for the fall yet?’ asks wife as I sip coffee and troll the league message board to see if there are any topics I can contribute malicious lies to before I go to work.

‘Yes, I have,’ I reply, pretending not to notice this is the fiftieth time she’s asked me this in less than a week.

‘And are you going to tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’ I ask, continuing the merry dance.

‘You know perfectly well what!’ she says, now showing her true colors. ‘Whether my boss’s son is making the cut or not!’

She’s suffered enough. I’ve wrung the process for every privilege I can this past week. Time to come clean.

‘Yeah, he is,’ I say.

‘Fantastic! That’s great news!’ She leans over and kisses me on the cheek. Talk about taking liberties. ‘Can I tell her this morning?’

‘Sure.’

‘So if he’s in the squad he’ll be starting right?’

‘What?’

‘He’ll have to start, he can’t be a bench player or she’ll hold it against me at work.’

'Are you kidding me?'

‘No, I’m not. She won’t tolerate him riding the pine or whatever you soccer people call it?’

‘Are you telling me how to pick my team?’

‘Honey,’ she says, thinking this will soften me up. ‘My boss is a very Type A personality. Her son has to be a starter on every team he plays.’

'Well this may be a valuable lesson for him and her. Sometimes in life, you have to watch from the sidelines.’

'I’d prefer him not to make the cut than to be a sub,' she shouts in that shrill voice she uses when nervous.

'You should have thought of that before pestering me to pick the kid!' I roar back.

She storms out the door to work, without even as much as a ‘goodbye honey’. Typically ungrateful.