Last Sunday, I was living the dream. I was lying on my couch, lazily sliding in and out of consciousness. I was watching the NASCAR race, or I guess I should say listening to the NASCAR race since my eyes were shut. I don’t think I have ever watched a NASCAR race without falling asleep. I don’t really need to watch 500 miles of cars going in a circle. I only want to see the final lap. I’m just watching so I can hopefully witness the Home Depot car beat the Lowe’s car (didn’t happen).
As the cars’ engine noise on the television lulled me to sleep, my cell phone rang in the kitchen, far, far from the couch where I was lying. I made no effort to get up to answer the phone. I was pretty sure it was my boss rubbing it in my face that the Lowe’s car was currently leading the race while the Home Depot car was in 20th place. My wife answered my phone for me. I heard her tell my boss I was asleep and that I would call him back later (I wouldn’t). Then, without warning, my easygoing, napping-on-the-couch Sunday afternoon got complicated.
My wife, whom I love, decided to take a little look through my cell phone. The next thing I knew, my wife was standing over the couch waving my phone and demanding answers.
“Who is Jessica Loveless and why do you have her phone number in your phone?”
Busted. Game over.
I quickly sat up from the couch and wiped the drool from my mouth. I needed to wake up and say the right things. I needed to be smart about this. My wife is a very important woman in my life, but then again, so is Jessica. Even though I’m married, a lot of my money ends up with Jessica. It’s complicated. It’s not what you think, or what my wife thought. Maybe I should explain.
Jessica Loveless (yes, that is her real name, I can’t make this stuff up) is the woman I order car parts from for my Nissan racecar. There is no inappropriate relationship. She lives in Tennessee, and I’ve never met her face to face. It seems like a simple answer, but I was having a hard time explaining it to my wife. My inability to communicate the facts was indicating guilt on my part. Sure, I was guilty of spending money we don’t have by buying parts from Jessica, but I surely wasn’t guilty of adultery. More like automotiverly.
Automotiverly is the act of spending more time on the Internet shopping for new wheels for your car (that doesn’t even run) than shopping online for your wife’s Christmas present. (Yes, men, even though it is early November, we are supposed to be shopping for Christmas already—apparently buying early shows a certain thoughtfulness that women like to see. That being said, I’ll see you boys Christmas Eve in the slippers section like I do every year.)
I was definitely guilty of committing automotiverly. The problem was, I couldn’t come out and admit it to my wife. Instead, I tried to skirt the Jessica Loveless issue and use the standard offense-is-the-best-defense method, a common mistake by men committing adultery or automotiverly.
“Why are you looking through my cell phone?”
“Because Oprah said I should. That’s why.”
“Oprah told you to? Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not kidding. She said the best way to catch your man cheating is to look through his cell phone. So, who is this Jessica *#%! Loveless?!”
I couldn’t put the words together for the answer. You have to understand: I was specifically instructed by my wife not to spend any—and she was very clear about the word “any”—money on the Nissan between then and Christmas, but I had secretly ordered some parts from Jessica. I was caught with my pants down.
You see, I have priors for committing automotiverly. I swore to my wife that I wouldn’t do it again. Experts say, “once a cheater, always a cheater,” and I’ve cheated on my wife for car parts before. I was going to be in so much trouble for spending money on the car that I was actually considering admitting to adultery because, at that point, I thought it might be less damaging than the truth itself, which was that I am a chronic automotiverer.
Suddenly, I had the answers to all my problems. I would lie.
“Honey, you can’t ask me about her, because she is a direct link to your Christmas present. You don’t want to ruin the surprise, do you?”
She thought about it for a minute, and then my wife changed her tune. The look on her face was of surprise. Her husband was actually doing some pre-emptive holiday shopping. Hallelujah. He was going to get Christmas right for once! She handed me my cell phone and said, “Okay, I won’t ask about it. I can’t wait to see what the surprise is.”
My wife will surely be surprised on Christmas morning when she unwraps a set of cross-drilled brake rotors for a Nissan SE-R.
Rob is currently looking through the Nissan Motorsports catalogue hoping to find anything his wife will want for Christmas. Hopefully they carry Nissan slippers.
This article appears in Nov 13-20, 2008.