Sh*t My Russian Wife Says: Vitamins

She wants me to stay fit as I age, and so buys vitamins online. Does she buy Flintstone vitamins so I can chew them with joy? No such luck. One-A-Day so they slide right down? Nope. She buys something that vampires and witches have concocted with brown mushrooms, eye of newt, and maybe old jockstrap for all I know. Gaawd, they are awful. So you want to know what they are called? I have no idea. There is some name in Cyrillic letters that I assume means: You Are Really ****ing Stupid For Taking These. The smell is so bad I have taken to opening the bottle outside of the bathroom, shaking out a pill, throwing down the bottle as I race to the bathroom faster than the odor can follow to where there’s a water glass waiting.

You know when the dread of something is worse than when the thing actually gets there? This is not one of those times. I hold my breath, grab the glass, pop the death pill and chug in a single motion. By then the odor hits me, just as the taste invades my tongue. I have not done justice in describing the horror. Words fail.

She just walked into the bathroom, so I asked her, “Do you think you could get me vitamins that are not so awful to take?”

“Why?”

I have learned that her questions are not based on the words she uses. I have learned this about my wife. All married men have learned it, and yet my tongue gets the better of my knowledge, and blurts out, “So they are not so awful to take.”

“How is that going to help you?”

Not a question. Bite your tongue. Is it a nod to the Russian winter, or marching barefoot to the Eastern front without rifles to fight the Nazis? I took a barefoot step toward a peaceful marriage and didn’t answer.

Guess what brand of vitamin I choked down again this morning?