I’m not sure if Gord was waiting for it to happen. I don’t know if he’s come to realize the inevitability of its occurrence every year. But I do know that he dreads when it does happen. And I know that it happened this past weekend.

I tried on a pair of last summer’s capri pants – and they didn’t fit.

At the sound of my sudden, sharp, intake of breath, Gord looked up from the newspaper he was reading. It was Sunday morning. The sun was shining. He was relaxing.

He told me afterwards that he never saw it coming.

What does a loving husband do when confronted by a distraught wife standing in front of a full-length mirror crying about her physical resemblance to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

Does he leap up and rip the mirror from the wall? No, not a good idea. Aside from the blatant panicked desperation such a move would reveal, in the end it would only serve to redirect his wife’s attention long enough to decide that the room needed painting.

Does he slowly lean across the bed and remove the Caramilk bar from his wife’s bedside table? No, not unless he wants his wife to march downstairs and not nearly so slowly remove the beer he has chilling in the fridge.

Does he simply go to the closet, and with nothing but a genuine loving desire to help, extract a pair of his own favourite shorts for her to borrow?

No man in his right mind would do that.

Gord did what many husbands have done before him when trapped in a similar terror-filled situation. He got up, hugged me, and said, “I think you look great.”

At the sound of a second, sharp intake of breath Gord ran to protect his beer.

There’s only one way a husband can safely remove himself from a situation fraught with weeping curses aimed at the chocolate-covered stomach expanders sold at the local donut store.

If he is lying down (as Gord was) when the pants hit the fan, then he should remain as still as possible. Once he is sure that his wife is not looking his way he should quickly roll sideways off the bed.

If he manages to do this undetected, he may choose to remain wedged between the bed frame and the wall until autumn.

I realize that if I had a better relationship with carrot sticks and turkey bacon and the yogurt on TV that makes your lower intestines do a belly dance, then maybe he and I wouldn’t be in this predicament.  

And I know that it is my choice to make a change. I need to remember that I’ve done it before. While my last successful weight loss has definitely moved into the hazy past by this point, it is not inconceivable that I could accomplish it again.

So I’m going back on the wagon.

It will benefit both Gord and I. After all, it was pretty hard to un-wedge him last September.