It Wasn’t Murder, Judge
“Here ye, here ye, all rise. It will be Judge Henry Shapiro presiding here today in family domestic court.”
“Will the person filing the charge stand and be identified?”
“Judge, I am Marge Finkelstein and I had my husband arrested last night for verbal abuse and I want you to find him guilty.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Finkelstein. You may be seated.”
“Will the defendant please stand and state your name?”
“My name is Hyman Finkelstein and what I did was warranted and I should not be here in this courtroom today.”
“Mr. Finkelstein, tell the court what took place yesterday.”
“Your Honor, it was 7:30 a.m. when my dear wife Marge yelled at me to get out of bed and go to the office. After I almost had a heart attack when she awoke me from a sound sleep, I told her that the day was Sunday and I didn’t go the office on Sunday. She then apologized.
“I said it is okay, for after 54 years of marriage, that is three times chai, which Your Honor knows means life in Hebrew, that I excuse her. I said let’s just have breakfast early.
“I’m starting to help get our breakfast meal together when I notice that we do not have any bananas. In our household this is akin to not having air in your lungs. ‘How could we be out of bananas,’ I yelled at her, ‘when you walked right past the 7-11 store yesterday after your hair appointment?’
“Her answer was that the two bananas would be too heavy for her to carry the one half block to our condo.
“After breakfast and after I had cooled down somewhat she told me to take out the garbage. I said what garbage? Since we eat out every meal and the only garbage collected are the banana skins and, since we didn’t have any bananas that morning, there should not be any garbage to take out. That response of mine did not go over very well with my dear wife Marge.
“She suggests that I take her to the mall where she can return a gift. I do that, and I am lucky since I find a parking spot about 25 feet from the main entrance. She says, ‘You could have left me off in front of the entrance instead of parking first and making me walk the 25 feet.’
“I tell if I had done that someone else would have taken that vacant parking spot as the mall was having its semi-annual sales event that day and the lot was almost completely full. “She tells me, ‘I’ll be back in a little while, so you just take a nap while I return this gift.’
“Two hours later my stomach starts to rumble because I didn’t have that banana this morning when finally my wife comes out. ‘What took so long for you to exchange a gift?’ I say.
“She tells me that it seems the store has just opened up a new coffee shop on the first floor and, as she was getting hungry, she stopped in and had a coffee and pastry. And guess what, she tells me, she met her girl friend Sarah and they had a lot of catching up to do.
“Your Honor, I forgot to tell you that Marge came out of the store with about five or six packages. When I asked, she said they were sweaters and that she saved me a great deal of money because they were all on sale.
“We get home and she tells me she did not try any of the sweaters on because the sale clerk told her that medium would be the right size for her. But now she wants to try them all on.
“Twenty minutes later she emerges from the bedroom and says to me that we have to go back to the mall since each of the sweaters is too small for her and that she needs a large instead of a medium.
“I could have told her that from the beginning if she had asked me, Your Honor, because she needs to lose about 30 pounds in order to fit into a size medium sweater.
“Out we go into the frigid December air and, guess what, the car won’t start. The battery is dead. I go into the house and call our road service provider to ask for a service truck to charge the battery. The operator tells me that we have not renewed our membership.
“I go out to the car and tell my wife this and she informs me that it was on her ‘to do’ list, but she has misplaced her ‘to do’ list. So I am obliged to call the local gas station to send a service truck.
“We make it back to the mall and this time she only takes 35 minutes to return to the car with a big smile on her face. She informs me that she has purchased a special gift for me.
“I inquire as to the gift and she informs me that she ordered a new checkbook from our bank with the Chicago White Sox insignia. ‘That’s wonderful,’ I tell her, ‘but do you remember I am a diehard Cubs fan?’
“We go out for dinner, and when we come home I get into my so-called comfortable outfit, which means my exercise shorts and my favorite pajama top. And do you know what she says to me. She says, ‘Hyman, why don’t you at least wear a tie just in case we have a visitor to the condo?’
“Then she turns on the charm and the sweet voice and says that she knows she has been a bad girl the entire day but she’ll make it up in bed that night. I ask her to repeat that sentence since I am a little hard of hearing and I haven’t heard that tone of voice from her in over 10 years.
“Last night I am eagerly awaiting her arrival into our bed when she walks in, her face downtrodden, and tells me that she can’t find her diaphragm and therefore no sex tonight. I tell her that at age 75 I don’t think she can get pregnant but maybe we could just cuddle.
“Just then the condo lobby phone rings in our condo, and, guess what, it’s her 95-year-old mother coming over for a late night visit.
“That’s when, Your Honor, I started to yell and scream at my wife for what had taken place all that day and what was to be expected further when her mother came into the condo unit.”
“Case dismissed,” Judge Henry Shapiro said.
© 2017 Albert Zimbler
Albert Zimbler is a 92-year-old author of six humor short story books on Amazon of which MORE DATING AND MATING SECRETS OF SENIORS AND OTHER HUMOR SHORT STORIES is the latest. He also teaches senior improv.