Husband and Wife Jokes From Forty-Four Years and One Hinge

Harlan and I have been married forty-four years, which is long enough to finish each other’s sentences and argue about how they end. These come from our kitchen, our pew at Willow Fork Community Church and the ladies’ circle, where nothing said about a husband ever leaves the room except in a casserole carrier. Share them with someone who still hogs the blanket.

The Thermostat Treaty

Doris and Lloyd Pruitt have argued about the thermostat since their honeymoon in 1971.

These days it’s a secret war. Lloyd sneaks it down to 67 every night. Doris sneaks it back up to 73 every morning.

At Thanksgiving their son-in-law let it slip that the hall thermostat hasn’t controlled a thing since Lloyd put in the new furnace in 1996. The real one is in the basement.

Neither one of them has been comfortable since he told them.

Thirty-One Letters

I still have the thirty-one letters Harlan wrote me the summer we courted. Every one is a full weather report that ends, “Yours, Harlan.”

Our granddaughter read them all and asked where the romance was.

I told her, “Honey, he drove to the post office thirty-one times. In July. In a truck with no air conditioning.”

Letter Number Thirty-Two

For our fortieth anniversary, Harlan wrote me his first letter since that summer.

I opened it at the supper table with my reading glasses on and my heart going like a girl’s.

“Clear skies Saturday. Light wind out of the south. Pack a lunch. Yours, Harlan.”

We spent the day at the lake. He was right about the wind.

Selective Hearing

Harlan insists his hearing is perfect, and I’ve come to believe him.

He can hear a peppermint being unwrapped in the back row during the pastoral prayer. He can hear the ice cream truck three streets over with every window shut.

What he cannot hear, in any room of the house, at any volume, is the word “gutters.”

The Sermon Series

Pastor Dunleavy preached on patience last Sunday, and Harlan elbowed me four times.

The next Sunday he preached on forgiveness, and I elbowed Harlan once.

I’m saving the other three for the drive home.

Wrong Casserole Dish

After the fellowship supper, I sent Harlan back into the church kitchen for my blue casserole dish.

He came out carrying two glass dishes, a pie plate, a gravy boat and somebody’s umbrella. Not one thing was mine.

Forty-four years of marriage, and the man still believes every glass baking dish in the county is community property.

Committee Work

People ask how Harlan and I stayed married through two years on the fellowship hall remodeling committee.

It was simple. I was the chairman.

Harlan sat in the back row, and every time I made a motion, he said, “Second.”

The Offering Plate

Harlan ushers on the first Sunday of the month. When he passes the plate down our pew, I drop in our check.

Every single time, he leans over and whispers, “Thank you, ma’am,” like I’m a generous stranger.

It’s our joint checking account. Forty-four years, and the only place that man thanks me for spending money is church.

The Recliner

At the furniture store Harlan tested a recliner with heat, massage and two cup holders.

After forty-five minutes the salesman came over and asked if we’d like some time to think it over.

I said, “We may as well buy it. He’s already taken off his shoes.”

Packing for Two

When the Pruitts drove to Doris’s sister’s for a week, Lloyd packed in one grocery sack. Doris packed three suitcases, and Lloyd grumbled about every one of them.

The first night, Lloyd needed a sweater, his toothbrush and his blood pressure pills.

All three were in Doris’s suitcase. She says that isn’t overpacking. That’s marriage.

Two Sinks

At the ladies’ circle, somebody asked Mabel Orcutt the secret to her fifty-three years with Vernon.

Mabel set down her coffee cup and gave it real thought.

“Two sinks and a short memory,” she said. “And if the memory goes first, you’ve still got the sinks.”

Our Pew

Harlan and I have sat in the third pew on the left for thirty-eight years.

Last spring a nice young couple from out of town got there before we did. Harlan didn’t say a word. He slid in right beside them and sang bass about four inches from the young man’s ear.

They sit with us now. The young man sings bass too.

Seven Labeled Casseroles

When I spent a week at my sister’s, I left Harlan seven casseroles in the freezer, one for each day, labeled in marker.

I came home to seven casseroles and a trash can full of drive-thru bags.

He said they looked so organized he didn’t want to ruin the system.

The Snoring Situation

Harlan has always claimed he doesn’t snore.

Then the Kowalczyks’ beagle next door started howling at two in the morning, every night, for three weeks straight. Finally the Kowalczyks mentioned, very politely, that the dog only howled on nights when Harlan’s window was open.

Harlan went to the doctor and came home with a breathing machine. Now the whole street sleeps through the night, including the beagle.

One Hinge

Harlan says I take too long at the store.

Saturday he went to the hardware store for a single hinge. He came home four hours later with the hinge, a birdhouse kit, a coffee can of bolts and the complete life story of every man in aisle seven.

The hinge still isn’t on the door, but he can tell you which of those men had his gallbladder out.

The Vow Renewal

Lloyd and Doris renewed their vows on their fiftieth anniversary, right there at Willow Fork.

When Pastor Dunleavy asked if there was anything Lloyd wished to add to his vows, their granddaughter raised her hand. “The porch step. Grandma says he promised that in 1971.”

Doris didn’t miss a beat. “Write it in this time, Pastor. In ink.”

Now go read these to your husband, and don’t worry about the part with the gutters. He won’t hear it anyway.