Like an Aviator

Naturally - The man on the phone does not know how to pronounce my husband's name. He is trying to sell my husband something. Sounds like he is trying to sell my husband a hundred cases of engraved pens. My husband is smiling. I shake my head sternly from the other end of the room.

"No," I mouth.

My husband is nodding.

"I don't really need a hundred," he says, "but I wouldn't mind buying half a dozen. And I don't need them engraved."

They must be pens.

"No," I whisper, "We don't need any pens."

"He's going to call me back," my husband tells me, "in 10 minutes. He's going to ask his supervisor if he can send me a special small order of half a dozen."

"Pens?"

"Sunglasses."

"How much?"

"Thirty bucks each."

"You are ordering $200 worth of sunglasses?"

"He says they're made in Italy. He suggested I give them to my clients as gifts. But he's not sure if he can send just six pairs. He might be able to do it as a special favour."

"That," I say, "is where you and I differ. When he calls back, will you let me get rid of him?"

High-end sales pitch

When my husband and I were married, we went to buy a mattress. We agreed all we needed was a decent mattress. We went in the bed store and looked at an economical mattress. I remembered I had left my bag in the car and went out to get it. By the time I returned, the salesman had my husband at the high end part of the store. They were discussing a four-poster bed that a person could pay for in 18 instalments of $1,000 beginning in 2017. It took me a long time to drag them back to the mattress. By the time I did it, I felt like a bad person. I knew, with Mister Sunglasses, it was going to happen again. When he phoned back, I realized I had never heard such a voice. He was all joy.

"You're dealing now," I told him, "with the part of the household that has a grain of sense."

"I have someone like that at home," he said good-naturedly.

"The part that is not going to buy any sunglasses."

"I hear you," he said, "and that's OK."

I liked him instantly. There was something about his voice that made me feel unconditionally loved.

"The part that has a No. 1 rule about buying things, and do you know what that rule is?"

"What is it?"

"I have to need it. I have to wake up and need the thing. And then I sleep on it and if I still think I need it the following day, then maybe I'll do something about it. And if I decide I need a pair of sunglasses, do you know what I'll do? I'll go to the store and buy myself the prettiest pair of Italian sunglasses you ever saw."

"But that's exactly what these are! That's what I'm trying to tell you. These sunglasses are handmade in Italy. The pilots at Air Canada wear these, for goodness sake. That's who wears these. I have a few odd lots left and I just wanted to give your husband the opportunity."

His voice has not a trace of impatience in it. He really and truly loves these sunglasses and wants my husband to have them. The heartfelt enthusiasm in his voice squashes my impulse to say the next thing on my mind, which is that Air Canada has been a very naughty airline and I don't give a flying pretzel what their stupid pilots have on their faces.

Earlier in my marriage I might have said this, but not now.

My husband is gesticulating that he wouldn't mind buying just six pairs. In fact he would like that very much. This is the part where I should shut up and give him the joy, but something has got into me. The invisible worm that flies in the night in the howling storm.

"I just wanted," says the sunglasses man, "to give him the chance to have these. Not for himself. I'm not suggesting he needs them himself. They're for his clients. They'd love these. And he would love giving them to them. Wouldn't he."

Deep in the south of Texas

"You've got that right," I tell him. "My husband is a great guy. He loves giving things to people. But you know what? He likes people. He has a great product. He doesn't need to give them anything else. He doesn't do promotions. He doesn't even have his name in the phone book. In fact, I don't know how you got it."

"Because this is Buzz Prowler you're talking to. That's how. And I know your husband must be a great guy. And you seem like a really nice woman, too."

"But I'm not. I'm not nice at all. Nice is not what I am."

"OK."

"And you know what today is? Today is my birthday. And I'm going to go now and eat some birthday cake."

"And you have a great birthday. And look, that's fine. I wish you could see these sunglasses, but it's OK."

And it is. Buzz Prowler has not an ounce of judgment in his voice. When I hang up, I feel like crying. I feel like I have just doused the sunshine out with a wet cloak. I feel like my husband would have loved distributing those sunglasses so much.

"He was going," my husband says, "to engrave KW on one of the pairs."

"How did he know my initials?"

"I don't know."

The phone rings again. This time it is some saleslady deep in the south of Texas, who also mispronounces my husband's name. Evidently his name has been newly entered on some kind of list. My husband's name is newly minted on the book of heaven, and mine is not. I am going to hell on my birthday.

Kathleen Winter is a freelance writer who lives on Butterpot Mountain. Her book of fiction, "boYs," was published in 2007 by Biblioasis.