Sh*t My Russian Wife Says: Breath

“Foo! Your breath smell!”

I had been alive for a long time on this earth before hearing that phrase delivered with a grimace as a pretty young lady turned away from my offered kiss. It puzzled me that the fire alarm had not sounded. Not even the smoke detector. I believe there would have had to have been a fog in the room for an American girl to sound that bell, but even as she turned from the kiss she accepted my hug, and stayed right by my side. I tried to figure out what she meant. You know how you can’t tell what your wife means by the words she uses, but instead by the inscrutable hieroglyphics of her mood and delivery? That means you have an American wife. My breath smelled. Plain and simple. Other than that, the day was fine.

Ah, the Russian soul. I understand it better now that we are settled into marriage, and family, and children. But I was reminded of it just the other day before leaving for a business trip when hit with the “Foo” again. My breath smelled. No shame this time from this grizzled veteran. She tells it like she smells it, and had even told me a few years into the relationship that she loved that I had no body odor, and quite frankly she would not have dated me had I smelled. I stopped using deodorant. Think of all the money I could have saved had I met her way back when before she was born.

It wasn’t just Foo I had to learn. The first time she came over to cook for me she squatted down by the dishwasher after dinner to stack plates and glasses, and anything else she could in the bottom rack. It all looked off. I had not even remembered that it was possible to get your fanny down by your ankles without toppling over backwards ass over tea kettle, but she was perfectly balanced, while the glasses she placed on the prongs of the rack spun like plates on a juggler’s stick. I pointed out that the rows of the top rack were designed for glasses, and that was where they belonged. Still balanced on her feet, she knocked me off mine when she shrieked, “Keeeeetchen is for woman!”

Hope springs eternal in the human breast, but a Russian girl’s attitude toward the kitchen doesn’t last nearly that long once she gets to America. I reminded her of the kitchen comment once and she responded, “Cemetery is for man.” I have not reminded her again.

There are also advantages to Americanization. She actually smiled to see me when I got home from my business trip. It doesn’t seem that long ago that she told me smiles caused wrinkles, and don’t expect any. I went for broke, and told her next thing I knew she would give me a compliment, and she complied:

“Your breath don’t smell as bad, now.”