I swear. I also lie.

This first appeared in the Ahwatukee Foothills News in September, 2007. The link died when they re-did the website, so it’s contained under the cut.

I’m also doing my best to make sure I don’t get repetitive in the old columns I post…I think I had a brain fart the other day. Thank goodness it was with a column I liked a lot. As I like this one.

*********************************************************************************************

The Old Testament tells us that Noah was visited by God in a vision and was told to build an ark because he was the last hope to preserve the living beings of the earth from an apocalyptic deluge.

What it doesn’t tell us is that when Noah went in to inform the Missus she snorted and said, “Oh, sure. That’s what you told me when you wanted to buy a ski boat.”

And he earnestly replied, “No, really! There’s this flood and it’s going to cover the whole earth and God wants me to build it so that all life isn’t wiped out. You and the kids get to come, too! This’ll be the vacation you’ve been bugging me to take you on!”

To which the beleaguered Mrs. Noah responded, “Okay, let me get this straight. I’ve been working three jobs and hoping for four days in Cabo San Lucas and what I’m going to get is, how long? A year? Cooped up with three kids and a hundred thousand animals? And that means I’m going to be taking care of all of them, given how well you got up with the boys when they were babies and how many diapers you changed, which is to say never and none?”

Noah protested. “No! I promise you! The kids and I will take care of everything. You won’t have to lift a finger.”

Mrs. N laughed. “Oh, you talk a good game. Now you say, ‘Sure, honey, I’ll take care of the pandas and make sure they don’t run out of bamboo and I’ll get up in the middle of the night when the hippo is having a breech delivery,’ but that’s how you talked me into having Shem and I’m not falling for it again. I’ve seen you in action and I am telling you that you are not spending the grocery shekels on a new iPod just because you might get bored mucking out the donkey stalls.

“No way. I’m holding out for Cabo.”

“But God picked me because I’m a righteous and blameless man! You have to let me do this!”

“I’d think a blameless man would do a better job of picking his socks up off the floor and marching them three lousy feet to the hamper. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go back to God and tell him to find a righteous man with a more gullible wife. You’ve been working your way up to this ever since I gave you my bunco winnings to buy a hot tub.”

Desperate, Noah played his last card. “Methuselah’s wife is letting him build an ark! With high-definition TV, too!”

“If you think you’re going to help him build his ark when you’ve got forty days and forty nights of rain coming and no storm windows up like I’ve been asking you to do for three hundred years, you’ve got another thing coming, mister!”

We know how this turned out.

And this is why, when what you’ve been asking for years is to go on a cruise down the Mexican Baja, you can pretty much bet that you’re going to wind up in Home Depot buying a unisaw, three hundred cubits of wood, and some really absorbent elephant diapers.

 Bon voyage!

 E.S. Evans 2007