You know that odd feeling in your stomach when you know something’s too good to be true, that something just isn’t right or that you’re being set up.

That’s the feeling I had Sunday morning after a conversation with Tammy.

You’d think that I’d be used to that feeling after my 12+ years with her, but like any good wife FBI agent she keeps changing up her approach to keep me off-balance.

And So It Begins…

Ours is overstuffed like this one.

Tammy always likes to “look at the ads” in the Sunday paper, so I didn’t think anything about her sitting at the table cutting coupons.

I was going about my business around the house when I noticed that she had taken out the coupon organizer.

When I walked by the table and saw several coupons sitting on the side, I just figured that she was going through the organizer to pull out the old ones and adding the news ones in.

It was only when she asked me to come over to the table that the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Tammy: Hey, can you come over here. I want to show you something.
Me: Uh… OK.

My mind was racing, thinking “What did I do?” I knew I had torn our coupon organizer a while back but I told her about that and didn’t think she’d need me present to explain that to her.

I buzzed by the table on my way to the bathroom but that wasn’t good enough for Tammy as she was looking for a more personal visit.

Tammy: Where are you going?
Me: To the bathroom. I saw you were cutting coupons.
Tammy: Stop by here when you are finished because I need to SHOW and EXPLAIN something to you.

I tried as best I could to stall in the bathroom and eventually headed over to the table.

Tammy: You see these coupons?
Me: Well, yeah.
Tammy: All of these are about to expire.
Me: OK. (I started to walk away)
Tammy: Don’t go anywhere. I want to go through them with you.

I Know My Rights!!

Please take a seat. I have a few questions for you.

Around this time I felt as if I had unknowingly stepped into a police interrogation that was being led by Officer Tammy.

She then proceeded to go through each and every about-to-expire coupon.

She explained what each one was as if I had just landed on the planet and never used a coupon before. She also asked questions about each one.

Tammy: These two are for batteries. Do you need batteries?
Me: Yeah, but I usually get them from Sam’s.
Tammy: Well you could just get some because we’ve got three different coupons.
Me: Ok.
Tammy: What about Bounce? Do we need any Bounce?
Me: Nope.
Tammy: Are you sure?
Me: Yeah. We’ve got more than half a box left.
Tammy: But you could get them now with a coupon. That’d be better than waiting until we need them and NOT having a coupon.

That’s when all of the butterflies decided to take flight in my stomach.

Tammy: What about Febreeze?
Me: We prolly could use some.
Tammy: Well, this is a buy one, get one free coupon so it’s worth it to get it.

Good for scrubbing: I wonder if they’ll work on my brain.

It was at this point that I knew I was in trouble but she wasn’t done with the interrogation.

Tammy: These are for those sponges I like.
Me: I don’t know if we need those or not.
Tammy: Well, I like them because they have that extra strong side that’s good for scrubbing stuff.

Seriously? She wants me to get sponges? Something definitely isn’t right. It wasn’t until the last set of coupons that I KNEW I was in for trouble.

Tammy: These are for candy, but this one is for Nestlé. I don’t know what all candy Nestlé has but they have the Nerds. You like Nerds.

You’ll Never Catch Me

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Me: You WANT me to go shopping?
Tammy: Yeah.
Me: I feel like I’m being set up.
Tammy: What? Why? If you just get the stuff we have coupons for it’ll be fine
Me: You wanting me to go to Wal-Mart and ONLY get stuff we have coupons for is like asking an alcoholic to go to a bar, sit right in front of the beer taps, maybe even pour a few beers but making sure they DON’T drink.
Tammy: That’s not true.

She obviously has forgotten about my love for Wal-Mart, how I once bought so much stuff the cashier asked how long it had been since I’d been shopping, how I spent so much money that it made Tammy cry.

She must have forgotten that she complained that I spent $50 at the grocery store this past Friday.

Wait a minute, if she doesn’t remember all of that then maybe I SHOULD go shopping and tell her that it was HER idea in the first place.

Then again her making me think she doesn’t remember everything might be part of her master plan… to set me up.