Dr. Chet Stephens: “My Wife Says I Golf Too Much.”
By Jock | April 27, 2008
Category: Dr. Chet Stephens
Dear Chet:
I have a problem. My wife says I golf too much and it’s destroying our marriage. She’s talked like this before, but now she’s threatening to leave. She even packed a suitcase. What should I do?
Tex, Philadelphia
Dear Tex:
Reading your letter brought back a lot of fond memories. As you may know, I was recently engaged to my fourth wife, Philamena. The previous three each moved on to bigger and better things. Two remarried and one died.
Let me give you a brief example from my life. About two years ago, my third wife, Candice, said something similar the night before I was to defend my Club Championship title (C-Flight). Obviously, I was focused on the impending match, so I didn’t respond. Not that I would’ve anyway. Without getting into it, I was at a strange place where I was pretending to be mute and that she was a mental patient the courts had sent to live with me. It worked for a while.
Anyway, the next day I teed off and everything was fine…until the seventh green when she popped out from behind this giant oak tree. What a bitch. Apparently she’d been crying for some time. Her face was bright red, except for where the mascara had streaked below her eyes. My first instinct was to hide behind my caddie, but he dropped the bag and ran. Worthless creatures, caddies. You see what they’re made of when the heat’s on.
After that, there was no hiding. She cried: “Why don’t you have any feelings for me anymore!?” She pounded my chest. “Why, Chet? Why?”
But I was still pretending to be mute, so I mimed a few gestures with my hands and pointed at my throat.
“I know you’re not mute!” she insisted. A large vein bulged in her neck. “Speak you bastard! Speak…or I’ll kill you!”
By now I figured the game was up. It was time to be honest. “It’s not that I don’t have any feelings for you,” I began, earnestly. “It’s just that they’re all bad feelings, so I thought, for your sake, that I should keep them to myself.” It felt good to get that off my chest. Honesty is a good thing, perhaps the best of things. I knew now she’d give me a little credit.
Well, first she tackled my opponent, Biff. Absolutely beautiful form: legs bent, head in front, just an explosion of force. (Candice played rugby in college. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with her.) Biff went down like a sack of potatoes. His dentures popped onto the green. She came for me, but I was able to fend her off with my long putter.
(Thank God for long putters.)
After several deft parries, she turned to my golf clubs and said: “So this is what you love—is it? Is it?” She then raised the bag over her head and twirled like a wrestler poised to deliver a body slam. (This was when I became aroused.)
She then moved toward the bunker and prepared to heave, but, thank the Lord, at the very last instant, good sense got the better of her.
Instead, she threw them in the water. There’s a subtle gurgle to sinking golf clubs that I’ve always admired, like an old ship going down, plummeting to the depths of existence. I closed my eyes and began to meditate. When I opened them, she was walking away. “I hope you’re happy,” was the last thing I heard.
Which, of course, I was. Biff was dead, meaning I won the match by forfeit, even though my clubs were sunk. They scraped Biff off the green a few days later. Plus, I’d kept my car keys in my pocket (a similar incident had occurred the year before), so I could still drive to the bar. And finally, my wedding ring was also in the golf bag, which added a degree of closure to the relationship that might’ve been lacking for weeks.
Dr. Chet Stephens was formerly America’s #1 Incarcerated Advice Columnist. Last Spring, he was released from prison, after serving 3 years for tax evasion. He has agreed to “occasionally” continue his award-winning, misogynistic advice column Replace Your Divots: Dr. Chet Stephens’ Thoughts on Love, Life & the Game of Golf. Chet is a 37 handicap.