Tongue of Fury: How to deal with the hot tongue of your fiery wife

Over many years of being at the receiving end of my wife’s yelling and swearing, I have naturally progressed into becoming an expert in dealing with such high-pitch situations. In this post I’m sharing my most recent experience and a few tips on how to deal with the fury of your wife or girlfriend’s tongue.

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These days, my wife has assigned me the job of packing my daughter’s daycare bag. My daughter’s school van drops her at the daycare after her school and she remains there until I go and pick her up in the evening. Since my wife’s also working, and leaves home to her office before I even wake up in the morning, it is also my job to drop my daughter’s bag in the daycare. The baggage would usually include food, water, extra pair of dress, shoes, blanket, towel and handkerchief.

Everyday I forget one or the other things to be kept in the bag and every evening I end up being tongue-thrashed by my wife. And this Monday morning, I was determined not to make a mess of things and went about meticulously packing things into her bag. After packing everything, I rechecked to make sure I haven’t missed anything. Then I left to my work place. As I rode the bike, I rechecked in my mind to find out if there was anything I had left out, but I couldn’t think of any. I was reassured that for the first time I had done everything perfectly.

Afternoon while having my lunch, my phone rang. It was my wife at the other end. I picked up instantly to tell her that I had not missed a thing. But before I could open my mouth, she barked from the other end, “where’s Tanaya’s daycare bag?”

I said, “I packed everything perfectly today”

She asked, “but where’s the bag?”

I dragged, “I…..”

God, I had forgotten to drop the bag in the day care! I had packed everything and had left it at home!!. Almost instantly, like an intuitive act, my ears were braced to receive the full blast of her wrath.

I told her, “Oh, god, did I forget to drop the bag in the daycare, oh…God…”

What happened after that is what usually happens on a Diwali day…all cracking and bursting noise that I couldn’t clearly make out who she’s calling names at…my father or my mother…anyway it didn’t matter as smoke emerged from my ears and I was engulfed in the haze of it.

I tried to imagine the beautiful girl I saw in Britto’s pub at Baga beach in Goa. She was singing a Pink Floyd song, “Where were you when I was burned and broken….I was staring straight into the shining sun” But when she didn’t offer me any consolation, I switched my thoughts to the funny Hindi EPL football commentary in Star sports, “goal mardiya van persie ne”.

Soon the line went off with a cling sound and heavenly silence followed – like when they declare cease fire in the India-Pakistan border after a noisy day of firing at each other.

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Effectively dealing with situations like this depends on the temperament of your wife or girlfriend, but at least one of the below tips might be useful to you.

• Remain quiet if you know you are at fault entirely. Just simply wait for the moment to pass. Remember the proverb, ‘This Too Shall Pass’!
• When she’s shouting at you, shout back some gaalies at her too. You don’t need to make any sense of what you are yelling because she won’t be listening to you anyway, but your constant yelling, given that it is maintained at a good pitch and rhythm, the chances are, she will soon stop with words like, “the hell with you, get lost” – which I’m sure most of you can take it lightly.
• Squeeze in your mobile headphones and listen to Eminem. If you are one of those guys who hates Eminem, like me, your wife may sound better.
• Whenever you get some free time, practice listening to heavy metal music at full volume so that your ears can develop that immunity to withstand profanity of any degree.
• Whenever your neighbors fight, lean on your wall and listen to the kind of vocabulary they use so that your personal dictionary is filled with appropriate words for the occasion. One of the worst things to happen in a verbal fight is that more often you are seriously short of words.

Hope this helps. Also, write your tips as well in the comments section below.