Certainty

Few things in life are absolutely certain. Death and taxes aside, little else can be predicted with great accuracy, which is a fortunate fact for weathermen and bookies alike. Nostradamus had a pretty good run, but some of his predictions were a little off to say the least. You'd think a guy that smart could have spelled Hitler correctly. The wife likes to take advantage of such universal chaos, attempting to irritate me occasionally with the phrase, "You never know."

According to her, the things that I never know could probably span the globe. I try not to pay too much attention when she says "you never know" because it is such a hard argument to dispute. There is just too much uncertainty in even the most improbable examples. Still, it gets my goat and danders my fur. This week I have been a little under the weather and more easily agitated than usual. One might even say I've been cranky. Like a wolf praying upon a wounded jackrabbit, the wife made her move.

I have been suffering from my first ever migraine headache and am surprised how weak it has made me feel. It's like having the flu without the vomiting. My eyes are sensitive to light, my ears to sound, and I just want to sleep. "Maybe you should take an iron pill," said the wife. "You could be anemic." I protested as loudly as my pounding head would allow, assuring her that I was not at all anemic. "You never know," she said. Inarguable and annoying.

While watching a show about moving houses from one location to another, she said "Next time we buy a house, we should do that." I told her that the cost of moving a house can be as much as $80,000. She quickly did the math, "$80,000 to move it, $10,000 for a lot to put it on, and $10,000 to get everything hooked back up. We could have a nice house for just $100,000." When reminded that she had not included the purchase price of the home, and that I was doubtful that anyone would just give us a house, she just said, "you never know." Irrevocably irritating.

And when discussing our finances and our budget and our future plans, I made the mistake of setting her up once again. "It's not like money will just fall out of the sky, " I said sarcastically. "You never know. It's happened before," came the reply. This was her ace in the hole and she had D.B. Cooper to back it up for her. Irrefutable, and yet utterly unlikely to happen again, at least in my presence.

So by this logic, and this uncanny and optimistic point of view, I could one day be crowned King of France, and on my coronation day I could slide down a rainbow and land on the back of a magnificent unicorn who would parade me around the streets of Paris as I drink vintage champagne from a slipper and monkeys fly out of my butt. After all, you never know.