All you really need to know before I get started is that my wife hates onions.

She hates them quite a lot. She's not an absolutist, mind you: when we make tacos, onions certainly are in the mix. But those are minced and cooked down to a distant memory. But raw onions--the smell, the taste, their offending presence in the cosmos--no, these are not to be tolerated.

We went out for dinner the other night; nothing special, just a dinner out at a neighborhood joint with all-right food. She ordered a burger with bleu cheese on it, and I had what I have every time we go there: Eggs Benedict. (When presented with a menu that has Eggs Benedict on it, I am almost totally powerless not to order it. 99% of the time, when given the option to order that dish, I will. Fuck you, Tony Bourdain! I have the balls to order Eggs Benedict! I do not fear the rancid Hollandaise! I am all man.)

As the wife was finishing her burger, I noticed the veggies on the side--some unused lettuce, an out-of-seasony pink tomato slice, some red onion slices--and I said, "Don't forget to eat your onions." I pointed at them firmly.

She frowned at me comically. I evidently then decided, as I do, to tormented her, and steeled my tone.

"I'm serious," I said. "You eat those fuckin' onions."

"No!" she wailed. "I won't!" She shifted tactics. "You eat them!"

Minx! "No way," I responded instantly. "I didn't order them." (I don't like onions either, really. Except for pickled onions. Let's not stray too far here.) "You eat those onions. You ordered them," I repeated implacably.

"I'm not eating the onions," she said firmly, and took another bite of her insultingly onionless burger. I seethed for a moment, then feigned nonchalantness.

"All right," I said lightly. I thought I saw her stiffen, anticipating a new tack. I pounced. "I guess I'll just take them home with me." She waited warily for the rest while I scooped up some hashbrowns and chewed them pensively.

"Then when you're asleep," I continued serenely, "I'll wake up in the middle of the night and put these onion slices all over your face. When you wake up, you'll be Onion Face, and you'll totally shit." Checkmate!

But she wasn't done with this battle. She narrowed her eyes. "You'll wake up in the middle of the night and put onions on my face?" she asked skeptically. I nodded. "Uh huh. So. Where are you going to keep them?"

Again, I had the answer in a flash. " 'Round my dick," I shot back confidently. I pointed helpfully at my dick area and made jaunty circular motions, helpfully demonstrating how raw onion rings would hang there nicely.

I will not give you a verbatim transcript of the terse dialogue that followed, but instead will simply--and humbly--say that her next few points about why that particular course of action would have devastating repercussions ably demonstrated that I had not thought that strategy through very far. And, in the end, I had to hoarsely admit that the idea was horribly unsound, and would quite possibly have profound marital implications.

"I won't keep raw onion rings around my dick," I said quietly.

"I bet you won't," she replied primly.

That should have been the end of it. But I couldn't let it go.

On the way home, we stopped for some groceries, and I was carrying the bags in both hands. And I had to once again express my dismay about the onion thing. "I'm still a little disappointed that you didn't eat your onions," I grumped. I wasn't going to let this go, because I'm apparently incapable of letting stupid, played jokes die with any semblance of dignity.

And she lashed out! With unexpected ferocity, my wife goosed the shit out of me. "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" I screamed. "What the fuck!"

"HAH!" she yelled, and lashed out at my ass again. I screamed the eunuch's song and waddled forward, pelvis first, butt-puckered and ridiculous, and howled, "Get away from me!" I waddled ineffectively away from her while she groped at my ass; laden down as I was, I had no defense. Unless I dropped the grocery sacks, but they held my beer, so that wasn't going to happen.

She goosed me like a dumb pud for two blocks, occasionally varying her attacks by jabbing an outstretched thumb towards my asshole, while I could do nothing but shriek inanities like "Butt assault!" and "Restricted! Restricted!" Somehow I managed to hobble home, red-faced and, quite likely, red-assed. I assumed all the platelets in my body had gathered in my ass region, assessing the non-damage and wondering what all the fuss was about.

When we got home and I divested myself of the grocery burden, I did retaliate with an goose-attack of my own, but I have to confess, my heart wasn't in it. I think the wife knew it too. I might have won the ass battle--it's arguable--but I lost the onion war.

This must be why we get along. We both hate onions. I just didn't know until that night that I think I hate them more than she does.