Take a Hike

“Honey, I am going on a hike.”

These were the seven words uttered by my Dear Husband (DH) the other evening. We were in the living room being lounge lizards. I was playing catch up on back issues of The New Yorker magazine which had begun to pile up in a most annoying way. DH was reclining on the other end of the couch looking at his Kindle. Somehow I can’t imagine the Kindle as actually supporting the task of reading, but, to each their own.

“Okay,” said I. “Have fun. Be back before breakfast.”

I studied the cover of the magazine in my hands. A nun, a girl in a bikini and a woman in what appeared to be traditional Islamic dress with a hijab and long black dress sat staring out at the reader. I noticed that the woman in the Islamic attire was actually similar to the outfit of the nun except that she wore a big ol' cross on her chest.

I listened to the smooth butterscotch voice of DH as I studied the cover trying to understand what it was the artist was sharing with his art. I traced my hand along the outline of the woman dressed in the bikini. She had on sunglasses and her legs were crossed. I noticed she had on platform shoes that didn't look very practical for a day at the beach.

“Well, I am not sure yet where the hike will take me,” said DH. “I mean I haven’t exactly decided. It may be Appalachia or it may be Argentina.”

“Well, at least you know which letter of the alphabet you are talking about,” I replied.

I glanced over at my DH looking very comfortable in his perch on the couch. His blue eyes were the color of topaz at dusk and he stared back at me as a rogue lock of sandy blond hair plopped over his left eyebrow. He had on an orange tee-shirt with skeletons dancing across the front of it. ‘Rattle them bones,’ was printed in block letters underneath the skeletons.

“You might want to get a haircut before you go,” I said.

He laughed and began to scroll through the electronic device propped on his lap.

"A hike,” I thought to myself. “I can’t even get him to go on a constitutional around the block and now he wants to go on a hike?”

DH gave me a big smile and a yawn, the wide open mouthed hippo-style yawn that seem to go on forever. That kind of yawn.

“Have you read anything interesting on your Kindle? “I asked my husband who had become way too horizontal on the couch.

I decided to try and get to the bottom of this sudden interest in hiking, and decided that maybe asking questions like Miss Marple – on seemingly unrelated matters might bring me closer to the truth.

“Well, there is a senator from South Carolina who is in a bit of hot water for a vacation he recently took,” DH said in a sleepy voice.

“Indeed,” I replied. “What kind of vacation did he take exactly?”

“Well, it seems that he neglected to tell his wife where he was going - just that he was going on a hike someplace to get away and think for a few days.” I could hear the cracks in my husband's ankles as he changed his position on the couch.

“So far sounds reasonable,” I said. Being a firm believer in the importance of personal space I support a few days here and there to get re-acquainted with one’s inner self.

“I guess you could say it turned into a little bit more than a commune with nature,” my husband said with a chuckle.

“It turns out that the good senator from the good state of South Carolina decided the scenery was better in Argentina and decided that neither his wife nor his staff needed to know how to get in touch with him. He was spontaneous- like you honey. Except that when he got to Argentina the only hiking he did was with a pretty Latina with whom it turns out he had been having a riveting email relationship."

I dropped the magazine into my lap and looked over at DH who was grinning- an ear to ear grin that said: “I am a goof.”

“Well dear, if you would like to go on a hike anywhere in the alphabet I am happy to accompany you,” I said in my sweetest candy voice and I winked.

And DH winked back.

Hike indeed.

I wonder who paid the bill for that hike? Come to think about it, I’ll bet the almighty senator will be paying for that hike for a long long time to come.


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