Maybe I'm getting too sensitive — but when a man asks me how to handle a problem wife, I'm fit to be tied. You see, I married Gracie Allen — so asking me about problem wives is like asking a man with a fractured skull what to do when you bump your head.

If you're a husband who thinks he's married to a jigsaw puzzle from which several pieces are missing — well, how would you like to be in my shoes?

Just today, for instance, I came home to find a ton of soft coal and two cords of wood blocking the driveway. We burn gas, so I thought it must be a mistake. But it wasn't. Gracie had bought the coal and wood to feed to a couple of silkworms — so they could make nylon and counteract the silk shortage! Is your problem wife like that?

Of course history has provided us with some famous problem wives like Lollia Paulina, wife of a Caesar, who wore an evening gown worth two million dollars, and Mary Shelled, wife of the poet, who spent her spare time writing Frankenstein. But they were merely average.

And it didn't take me long to realize that Gracie isn't the average problem wife. That's probably because she doesn't come from the average problem family. During our honeymoon I began to get suspicious when I first met her family and got a peep at their model farm. One tip off was the fact that her father was going barefooted — he'd nailed his shoes up over the stable doors because the horses thought it would bring them good luck. Gracie assured me her daddy was mentally sound — he was only a little worried, she said, because his two cows were so old that the only way he could get any milk out of them was by drawing it out with a poultice!

Another incident, among the things that set me wondering, was when Gracie took me out to the barn and introduced me to a donkey named Uncle Gilbert. This was a matter of sentiment, she explained. A few months before, they'd sent her Uncle Gilbert to town to sell the donkey for twenty dollars. Apparently he couldn't get the price, but some sort of sale had been concluded — because that night the donkey came home with a ten-dollar bill in his mouth!

After a week on this muddled farm I began hinting to Gracie that she and her family seemed a little bit on the eccentric side. "Well, why don't you go and have yourself psychoanalyzed and find out what's the matter with us?" she suggested. It didn't make sense, but it was the best offer I'd ever had from her — so I went.

The psychoanalyst was fascinated by my story of Gracie and her family. Quietly he listened as I told how they kept her grandfather in the broom closet because he was a Hoover man — how they were trying to develop chickens with double chins so there'd be more meat on their necks — how her brother was so kind to animals he spent all his spare time in a Turkish bath having a masseur pat the dog tattooed on his back — until finally I was explaining how Gracie's mother was a little nearsighted and was always mistaking billboards for postage stamps and trying to lick them and stick them on letters.

At this point the psychoanalyst interrupted me.

"Mr. Burns," he said, "do you ever see spots before your eyes?"

I said that I didn't.

"Well," he continued, "if you ever do see spots, just make believe they're tapioca and put sugar and cream on them. They're delicious!" And, with a peculiar laugh, he put on his strait jacket and went home.

A year or so later I met a psychiatrist who was a little more helpful — but not much. "You've got nothing to worry about," he said cheerfully. "You're merely in the same boat as a man who's climbed a tree and caught a grizzly bear and wants somebody to help him let go of it!"

His theory was that Gracie needed something entirely apart from her married life to interest her and make her feel independent. Then he wanted to know if she had any hobbies. Well, Gracie has nothing but hobbies — hobbies and hallucinations — so I told him a few of them.

He nodded approvingly when I told him that Gracie played badminton, but he was a trifle puzzled about why she used lamb chops instead of "birds." I had to explain that batting the lamb chops back and forth made them nice and tender for dinner.

He was also keenly interested in Gracie's surrealist-painting fad — and when I told him she painted her nightmares on panes of glass so she could see them from either side, he got very enthused. By the time I got around to her collecting hobby he was really excited. You see, since I've been with her, Gracie has collected twelve tons of tin foil, 245,000 old phone books, sixty-five and a half miles of string, four trunkfuls of broken rubber bands, and in a safety-deposit box she has nearly three thousand pits from olives that used to be in chicken tamales.

The psychiatrist said he'd like to meet her and interest her in his hobby, which was gardening. He told me that he'd collected 19,000 bottle tops and when he got time he was going to plant them and raise a beer garden! I've never been back to see him!

However, the biggest problem with Gracie is her attitude toward door-to-door salesmen. The other day a very husky, handsome, and athletic young man came to the door. He said, "Lady, would that pygmy, undersized husband of yours be interested in a physique like mine?"

"No," she answered; "but I would!"

People are always suggesting things that will keep Gracie busy, but what I'm really looking for is something that will keep her from keeping busy. Every now and then some well meaning person tells Gracie she ought to try her hand at writing. This is fairly harmless, except that she usually writes her stories on my white dinner shirts. More than once I've had to take my coat off at a banquet — so she could show some producer her latest original!

Just to give you an idea why you haven't seen much of her writing in print lately, here's one I found on one of my handkerchiefs. It's called: "Ugh! Ugh! — A Short Short Novel in Indian Dialect." Here's how:

"Once upon a time heap big Indian Chief named Short Cake marry heap big Squaw. Squaw, she heap pretty and heap bad cook. One day she feed Chief Short Cake heap big mushrooms to see if they are toadstools They are. And heap big Chief get heap sick and die, and next day Squaw bury Short Cake! Finis!"

Gracie has also tried writing mystery stories, but she had to give it up. She could never keep the murderer's name a secret after the first paragraph! She not only has a single track mind, but it's also a sidetrack!

People often ask me about my problem wife and matrimony, and I've come to one conclusion: Too many marriage bonds are guilt-edged. Eventually, union with a problem wife boils down to this formula:

Before marriage I talked — she listened. After marriage she talked — I listened. Now we both talk — the neighbors listen!

They tell me the trouble with most problem wives is that they're very unhappy or very bored, but that's not Gracie's trouble. Nothing bores her and everything makes her happy. She even gets pleasure out of simple little things like taking care of my clothes. Not so long ago I discovered she'd sent all my coats to the tailor for alterations — she had them put buttonholes where the buttons had been. How do I fasten a coat that has only two rows of buttonholes down the front? With my extra cuff links, of course! Even Gracie could see that would be logical.

She's crazy about cooking — and crazy is the right word for it. When she makes an upside-down cake, she serves it upside down. Even the plate on top of it is upside down! For years I've been trying to get four-minute eggs for breakfast, but when Gracie gets my breakfast the eggs are always soft. She says that's because her hands are very tender — she can't hold an egg in boiling water longer than two minutes!

Furthermore, she won't use cook-books because a recipe once fooled her. It was a recipe for a six-egg layer cake, and she was very disappointed because the cake didn't lay one egg, let alone six!

I could go on for days telling things that make Gracie a problem wife, but it wouldn't be of much help to other husbands and it doesn't even make me feel better to get it off my chest. Actually, I don't know any more about handling a problem wife than I do about handling a golf club. Just when I think everything is going all right, she slices and the next thing I know she's got me in a sand trap.

Frankly, I originally married Gracie because she was different from other women — she was the only one who would have me! And underneath it all, I guess I'm like all husbands. For I too don't know how to get along with a problem wife — but I wouldn't know how to get along without her, either; and the funny part of it is, I wouldn't want to know!

Publication Date: September 27, 1941