This is an old column I’m bringing up-to-date today because if I thought I was depressed then, I had no idea what depression could be in today’s stay-at-home-with-your-loved-ones-until-you-want-to-scream coronavirus nightmare.
I’M DEPRESSED
Why is it that, when a couple is married a long time, the wife decides she knows better than the husband about what’s best for him?
It’s never the other way around.
I would never tell my wife, the beautiful Judy Licht, what to do, but she is always telling me what’s wrong with me, what to do about it, and how to live.
What is it with women? They want to share everything.
Judy’s doctor gives her calcium for bone density. She insists I need the same pill or my arms and legs are going to fall off.
She goes on a fad diet where they deliver a black pouch every day to our front door containing incredibly expensive, teeny-weenie portions of disgusting food I wouldn’t give to our dog, Shlomo, and she insists I go on the same diet.
She exercises with water aerobics and she wants me to do the same.
I’m fighting back. I now wear a T-shirt that reads:
EXERCISE HARD
EAT RIGHT
DIE ANYWAY
Then, of course, Judy plays the “depression” card. Unless I’m smiling like an idiot every second of every minute of every hour of the day, Judy says, “You’re depressed.”
“No, I’m not,” I answer with a smile.
“Yes, you are,” she insists. “Is it age-related?”
“Okay, okay, you’re right,” I answer. “I’m depressed and it’s age-related. I realize that I’ve reached the stage of life where I spend more money on laxatives than I do on liquor.”
She shook her head. “Making disgusting jokes like that is a sure sign that you’re depressed.”
“But everything I do is a sure sign to you that I’m depressed. This is depressing me.”
“See.”
“See what?”
“See, I told you that you were depressed,” Judy said. “What’s depressing you? You can tell me.”
“I’m depressed because we are about to be hit with hurricane with a name – Isaias – that I can’t pronounce, and I’m sure it’s a politically correct name approved by the New York Times.”
What happened to the good old days when hurricanes were named Bill or Sally or Mary or Bob?
My favorite was hurricane Sandy, which was the name of every Jewish girl of my youth I lusted after.
“I’m depressed that Donald Trump, who easily beats out Jimmy Carter as the worst president in our nation’s history, is running against hopeless old Joe Biden, who will wear a mask over his eyes instead of his mouth or, worse, forget to show up for his own inauguration.
“I’m depressed because in five years, when Trump winds up in prison and Bernie Sanders becomes president, he will pick Al Sharpton to head up the World Bank and seriously dopey Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be Secretary of the Treasury.
“I’m depressed because when we were watching the ‘Mission Impossible’ movie on TV the other day, I was secretly rooting for the bad guys to kill Tom Cruise and, to my worse shame, I’m starting to believe Tom Hanks is a phony.
“And, as I said before, I’m mostly depressed about…”
This was when Judy interrupted me.
“You’re impossible,” she said and stormed off.
I think I won that round but it never ends.
Years ago I was in our bedroom reading when Judy called out to me from another room in our house.
“Jerry! Jerry!”
“What? What?” I jumped out of bed because when Judy calls me she always has the same frenzied tone.
Is she just going to tell me something that will amuse me? Or did she trip and is she dangling off the side of our staircase in danger of plunging down four stories and I should run as fast as I can to save her?
“Jerry! Jerry!” she yelled again, with the same sound of urgency.
“What? What?” I screamed.
Then she said, “There’s a book I want you to read.”
Okay, it was about a book, so I realized she wasn’t in some kind of danger.
“What?” I said, trying to hear her.
“There’s a book I want you to read.” This was followed by silence.
One minute went by … another minute went by.
“Judy! Judy!” I called out. I could hear her on her computer.
“JUDY!!” I finally screamed.
“What?” she said, annoyed at the sound of my voice interrupting her, as she had moved on to another subject.
“Judy, you just told me there’s a book you want me to read, but you never told me the name of the book.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “There’s a book I want you to read. It’s called ‘Driven To Distraction’.”
“Oh,” I said, “and what’s it about?”
“It’s a book about A.D.D.”
“Why do I have to read that?”
“Because I think you have an attention deficit disorder.”
I swear this is true; I can’t make this stuff up. She forgot mid-sentence to tell me the title of the book and went off to another subject, and she thinks I’m the one who has an attention deficit disorder.
And you wonder why I’m depressed?
-If you wish to comment on "Jerry’s Ink" please send your message to jerry@dfjp.com