Should Spouseicide Be Legal?

    Does anyone know what it's called when a wife kills her husband? And no, I don't mean murder or homicide. According to my extensive research on the Internet, which we all know is a very accurate and reliable source of information, when one kills one's parents it's called patricide (father) or matricide (mother). Did you know there is a 'cide' for killing just about everyone or everything but a spouse? For instance, did you know that killing one's brother is fratricide; killing one's sister is sororicide or killing a Bishop is episcopicide? There are also 'cide' words for killing bugs, flowers and even whales! So, could killing one's spouse be called 'husbandicide' or spousicide, depending on the gender?

    Traveling in a car for miles and miles could very well be legal justification for killing a spouse or partner. No judge in the land (if the judge were female) would ever convict a wife for killing her husband after (or even during, if she can read a road map and find her way) a long road trip.

My husband and I made a quick overnight business trip (eight hours one way) to Houston. We stayed in a nice hotel, courtesy of his company, and our gas and his meals were paid for but the actual trip . . .OMG!

    I guess I can thank him for the fact that I don't need to actually work out anymore to keep my heart rate up. By the time we stop for a potty break my heartbeats per minute are usually up to about 1,000! Now I appreciate his consideration and concern for my health by helping out with my physical well-being but I'd like to keep my mind a little bit longer, thank you very much. I don't want my grandchildren coming over to visit during the Holidays and using me to hold the decorations at Christmas. I can just picture them draping garland around my neck and making a headband of lights for head. I wouldn't mind that so much but putting bulbs in my ears like oversized earrings might be a problem; those suckers get really hot.

    Now, I'll admit I'm a nervous passenger and tend to get a little overanxious (and sometimes borderline hysterical) any time he drives 80 mph in a 65 mph zone but my husband has managed to develop selective hearing over the years so I know he's purposely not listening to me holler about the semi-truck he's about to make our acquaintance with just so he can enjoy seeing the veins in my neck throb.

    I think he, like most men, are also latent Nascar drivers. They fantasize themselves at the Indy 500 dodging cars like (insert current favorite race car driver here). If it weren't for the occasional highway patrolman, every man with a driver's license (and even those without) would drive like he was low flying down the Autobahn.

    This is where the spousicide comes in. I'm a stickler for the speed limit. I never drive more than five miles an hour over the posted limit, not because I'm such a goody-goody, but mostly because I'm terrified at the thought of getting pulled over by the police. My husband, on the other hand, thinks of such postings as mere suggestions to be followed when the mood moves him, which is almost never (except in school zones when I'm hollering 'Slow Down, School Zone!' while stomping on an imaginary brake and hyperventilating into a paper bag).

    Why do men tend to think of any signs on the sides of the roads are recommendations to be ignored at will? Now to avoid being called sexist, I know that there are plenty of women out there that do the same thing, I'm just not one of them.

    My mother, on the other hand, had a condition that my sister and I referred to as 'lead-footitis', which, I believe, is a genetic condition that can be recognized by the pathological need to drive a minimum of 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. Those with extreme cases can be recognized as the drivers who also dart in and out of traffic, changing lanes willy-nilly while seemingly ignorant of that funny little stick on the side of the steering wheel that causes a light to blink when engaged. People with this infliction, you know who you are. LOL.

    Anyway, she would definitely drive like race car driver but at least she was a friendly one. She frequently used the one-finger salute to greet drivers in the other cars as she passed, sometimes accompanied by some helpful words on how they could improve their driving and lives in general. One can only hope the other drivers could not read lips at 80 miles an hour.