Okay, this is the story of the Wednesday I inadvertently killed off my husband!  Let’s get some background information figured out before I confess!  This is my husband:

My husband alive and well!

For the sake of this story, my husband’s name is John Richard Smith.  When little John, known at the time as Johnny, went to kindergarten, there was another Johnny in his class.  HE did not like the other Johnny at all.  Little Johnny went home one day from school and announced that from that day forward he would be Ricky!  Fifty years later, little Johnny is still known as Ricky!  The reason this is important will be clear pretty soon.

Here is another piece of the back story:

I am a napper.  For the last 15 years or so, when I was working, I would go home for lunch and take a 50 minute nap.  I had everyone that knew me trained NOT to call during lunchtime at my home.  I even had the cat and dog trained not to bother me.  Believe me, I did not like to be bothered for that particular 50 minutes unless the house was burning down!

Now, on to the story:

One weekday, at high noon, the phone rang.  I sleepily answered hello and the person on the other end said “John Smith, please”.  Being the polite, though cranky, person that I am I said,  “John Smith is not available, may I take a message?”.  They said, “I will call back”.  Now, at this point I figured it was a salesman or a non profit calling because they did not realize my husband did not go by John Smith.  For the record, I went back to sleep!

Over the next several weeks, this person called several times at HIGH NOON.  I was starting to get perturbed.  The following things went through my mind (when I was awake):

1. Ricky had won the lottery and they were trying to reach him.
2. Ricky had been gambling and owed someone a lot of money.
3. Ricky was tired of me taking naps and had paid someone to call.

Number 3 was my first pick!

So one Wednesday as I was napping (after all, it was high noon), the guy calls!  After the usual conversation starter that went like this:

“John Smith, please”.  Being the polite but REALLY cranky, person that I am I said,  “John Smith died”.  They did not say, “I will call back”.  Pretty much they just acted confused and hung up.

Skip forward to Saturday and I was looking through the mail.  I noticed an envelope addressed to THE ESTATE of John Smith.  It pretty much was a condolence letter from Ricky’s credit card company expressing their sorrow at his death, but please pay his $200 credit card bill.  Well, knock me over.  Who knew you could kill your husband, via the phone and it would stick?  Well, Ricky came home and before I could break the news to him that he was dead, he told me he had a funny story!  He had gone to lunch and his credit card had been denied!  Of course, he was not by himself at lunch and was able to get someone else to pay.  He had gone back to the office and called the credit card company and they thought he was dead!  Okay, at this point I had to tell him that it was his loving wife that had actually killed him.

That is it, the story of the day I killed my husband.  The good news is he lived through the trauma and today is a happy, healthy guy!

“Ricky” alive and well!

I would like to say that I gave up napping, but I hate to lie!  After all, I am THAT CHILD, just grown up!

I was THAT child

The best news is that we lived happily ever after!

Cathy and Randy
AKA Cathy and “Ricky”

There is no moral to this story.  It is just a story about a situation that, even today, I find amazing and amusing.  I changed my husband’s name for this story to protect myself from his credit card company.

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