Judith Viorst: Among Other Thoughts on Our Wedding Anniversary

Over the years,
When the sink overflowed

Or the car ran out of gas

Or the lady who comes every Tuesday to clean didn't come

Or I felt pudgy

Or misunderstood

Or inferior to Marilyn Kaufman who is not only a pediatric

    surgeon but also a very fne person as well es beautiful

Or I fell in the creek and got soaked on our first family camping trip

Or mosquitoes ate me alive on our first family camping trip

Or I bruised my entire left side on our first family camping trip

Or I walked through a patch of what later turned out to be 

    plenty of poison ivy on what later turned out to be our

    last family camping trip

Or my sweater shrank in the wash

Or I stepped on my glasses

Or the keys that I swear on my children's head I put on the top of the dresser weren't there

Or I felt depressed

Or unfulfilled

Or inferior to Ellen Jane Garver who not only teaches constitutional law

    but is also a wit plus sexually insatiable

Or they lost our luggage

Or our reservations

Or two of the engines

Or the rinse that was going to give my hair some subtle copper highlights turned out to be purple

Or my mother-in-law got insulted at something I said

Or my stomach got upset at something I ate

Or I backed into a truck that I swear when I looked in my rear-view mirror wasn't parked there

Or I suffered from some other blow of fate,

It's always been so nice to have my husband by my side so I could 

Blame him.