Henry: Love a wife, love a duck

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In the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley where I make my home, an unofficial award is made annually for Best Husband. The judges are fellow husbands who discuss the best candidates when they happen to get together for a few drinks.

The input of wives is not sought but of course is invariably given, but the husbands discount their advice as unhelpful. Only husbands can judge other husbands, for reasons I will explain later.

It is never easy being a husband but it is especially difficult in any of the communities that make up the Sewickley postal code. Let me rush to explain that this is not because of the hateful stereotypes that normally attach to an affluent area such as this.

Confounding all rumors to the contrary, I can stipulate as a fact that the Sewickley-area wives do not spend their time eating bon bons. No, idle munching of bon bons is not for Sewickley wives, for the simple reason that they are fattening. Besides, it is hard to eat bon bons while doing yoga.

It is true that Sewickley wives, in seeking to be slim and beautiful, possess a certain (ital) je ne sais quoi (endital), which makes them hard to be married to. The (ital) quoi (endital) in this context is hard to explain but the phrase "high maintenance" comes to mind. (Who said that? There must be an evil ventriloquist loose in this column.) In the matter of pleasing wives, the husbands of the Sewickley area apply the sort of criteria you would expect in picking a Best Husband award.

Said husband must lavish his wife with attention at all times, buy frequent gifts, including jewelry and clothing, arrange for exotic vacations, make breakfast and evening meals, perform all sorts of domestic chores without being asked and always answer "no" to the question: "Does this make me look fat?" In short, the usual stuff. What is unusual about this award is that it is not an honor to win it. Quite the contrary, it is a great shame. The only prize, such as it is, may involve being visited by a delegation of husbands who come to tell the winner to cut it out, for goodness sake, because he is spoiling it for everybody. This is why wives cannot be judges. They have no idea about the damage an overeager husband can do.

I am here to report that this year's contest has run into a complication. Usually, Chris and Dennis are the favorites with Jay close by and Bill, Craig, Rob and myself bringing up the rear. (As you can now understand, I cannot use their full names because to do so would make them detestable in the husband community nationwide.) Both Chris and Dennis are model husbands, sometimes in the face of provocations to their marital sainthood. (Who said that? That darned ventriloquist has returned.) But Dennis has done something to completely upset all deliberations. The panel of husband judges does not know what to make of it.

Last Mother's Day, his wife Lisa was reportedly hoping for an expensive gift of the bauble variety. Instead, he bought her two ducklings. He built the ducklings a little duck house with a heart-shaped window. He got them a rubber duck pool. To say that Lisa was nonplussed is an understatement. I believe her exact words, were: "What the heck is this?" It is possible that some (water) foul language was then used to describe her disappointment.

All the husbands at once concluded that this extraordinary present had now dashed Dennis' hopes of being named Husband of the Year, which, of course, made the rest of us think more highly of him.

The ducklings have since grown up and are quacking up a storm. Lisa first named them "Plum" and "Biscuit" but has renamed them for two close friends, because, she says, they constantly wander about aimlessly chatting to each other.

The ducks, which Dennis found on the Internet and bought from a farmer, are of a type known as Indian Runners. They have wings but they do not fly. It is somehow fitting that in a community where joggers are found in epidemic proportions, even the ducks are in on the act.

Here is the strange thing: Against all odds, Lisa has taken a great shine to the ducks. She is tall with a long elegant neck and so are they and so everybody pals together. And Dennis, who seemed to be destined for the doghouse if not the duck house, is back in the running for Husband of the Year.

But we judges don't know how to grade him. We are out of our depth in this pond. Lord, love a duck.

(Reg Henry is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. E-mail rhenry(at)post-gazette.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)

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