My ex-husband had a 1980s model Ford Bronco. One day. it started to act up when he tried to put it in reverse. I asked him to let me try it so I could feel what it was doing. He looked at me like I was crazy, but he let me do it.

Once I was finished, I told him there was a problem with the linkage. He insisted that I didn’t know anything. He said he needed a new transmission, and he was going to take it to the shop and have it replaced.

He took it to the shop the next day but was home with the truck and his dad (who’d followed him to the shop) about two hours later. When I asked him what happened, he didn’t want to tell me.

I kept asking and he finally answered me. They found a wingnut caught in his linkage.

For the rest of our marriage, whenever he was acting like a jerk toward me, I’d just ask him if he needed a wingnut.

My wife and I are in our early thirties, but my wife used to be my elementary school bully.

This happened all the way back in second or third grade I believe. [Wife] used to be a really big and mean girl in school. She was taller and broader than me. She would throw most kids around with no problem, including me. She would often push me around and call me names — typical school-bully-type stuff that you’d see in movies.

One day, I decided I’d had enough. After [Wife] pushed me to the ground, I pushed her back, and we got into a slapping and shoving fight. As soon as a teacher came to break us both up, I threw a fist and bruised the left side of my future wife’s face. She ended up on the floor crying.

We both got pulled into the office, and our parents were called. Our moms got into an argument while our dads tried to defuse it.

After that, [Wife] stopped picking on me, I apologized for punching her, and we soon became friends. We became close friends throughout middle school and high school, and we started dating right after school.

The next time our moms saw each other was on our wedding day. They were smiling, but I could tell they both still wanted to rip each other’s throats out. Our dads are good friends, however.

Now, we’ve been happily married for six years, and we’re expecting a third child soon. I still wonder how my child self would react if I told him that the girl who’s calling him a turd-monkey is going to be his future wife.

Typically, I cook all the meals for myself and my wife. The exception is on Fridays when my wife has the day off, but I work at a different site and so get home relatively late. The normal routine is that on Fridays, my wife will go to the store to get food for the week and then cook dinner Friday night. I handle meals from Saturday through Thursday. 

My wife is about five months pregnant with our first child and is experiencing a bit of “pregnancy brain”. 

I am on my way home from work and call my wife once I hit the highway like I typically do. 

Me: “Hey, honey, how are you feeling?”

Wife: “A little tired, but mostly all good.”

Me: “Sounds good. Is there dinner at home, or were you too tired? I can stop somewhere on my way home if you like?”

Wife: “No need; there is dinner here. All good.” 

I finish my drive home and come into the house to find my wife on the couch snacking on some cookies and watching TV. 

Me: “Hey, love, did you already eat?” 

Wife: *Happily* “Yep, I already ate. Thanks for checking on me.” 

I figure maybe she just got hungry early and there are leftovers somewhere. I clean up, change out of work clothes, and then go looking through the fridge. Not only are there no leftovers, but there is nothing from our weekly grocery list, just some snacks and junk food.

I start trying to cobble together some version of a nutritious dinner out of snacks and non-perishables from the pantry when, suddenly, I hear from the other room:

Wife: “OH, S***! YOU NEED TO EAT, TOO! I FORGOT!”

Once we stopped laughing, I had my junk food dinner, and we decided it was probably time to go through the chore list and make some pregnancy adjustments.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m eating dinner at a steakhouse. The waitress brings around a bunch of pink carnations and hands one out to each female diner. 

The man at the next table says something I can’t make out. His date replies: 

Woman: “No. You still have to. This flower isn’t from you; it’s from [Steakhouse]!”

My friend was asked by a date, very early into said date:

Date: “Are you on your period? I have this strange talent where I can always smell when a girl is on her period.”

She picked up her bag and left immediately.

The unnerving part was that she WAS on her period.