There was something wrong that Sunday morning as my family and I sat in church. I just didn’t know what.
The something wrong wasn’t because I sweat like a coal shoveler every time I step into a church-I’ve finally come to terms with that. I sweat because of all the candles, or the stain glass magnifying the pre-kickoff sunlight, or knowing the Host is really high in carbs. Yeah, it has nothing to do with all that “thou shalt not” stuff I keep forgetting about until it’s too late.

But this wrong was something different.

Had I left the oven on?

Did the football game start early?

Had the Hadron Super Collider created a black hole that was, at that moment, ending life on earth as we know it?
I felt a nudge. My wife was all fidgety, so maybe she felt it, too. Black holes are funny that way.

Of course, the something could have been a little less devastating than global destruction. Was the sanctuary too cold, or too warm, or too Protestant?

Nope.

The feeling was from something dangerous, something bordering on sinister, something that had the power to get me into a lot of trouble. And, yes, my wife had felt it. I just hoped, for my sake, she was as clueless I as I was.

She wasn’t.

“Oh,” she said in that church volume only immediate family members are supposed to hear. “It’s our anniversary.”

(Insert any alarming thoughts here because, trust me, at that moment I had none. My brain had shut down.)

There are many unforgivable crimes a married person can make. I mean apart from the “Judgment Day, biblical-wrath, cheating on your spouse” kind of stuff you see on ABC.

Betting your toddler’s college fund in a poker game because “the doctor said his motor skills are in the 75th percentile. Don’t worry, he’ll get a scholarship” is one. Having a running tab at Hooters is another. So is having a membership to the Cheerleader of the Month Club.

Setting fire to your wife’s high school yearbooks is …
You know, thinking about it, there are more things you can do to make your wife mad than to make your wife happy. Don’t stop trying, just don’t feel so bad when you fail.

But the biggest crime-even bigger than insulting her mom’s cooking-is forgetting your anniversary.

Largely due to Hallmark Cards’ corporate strategy which, cutting through all the feel-good commercialism, is to make guys look bad, anniversaries are the gauge wives use to see just how much their husbands love them.

Forgetting an anniversary means you consider your wife as intimate as a bowling partner-a bowling partner you don’t hang out with or have a telephone number for.

But remembering an anniversary by purchasing something expensive enough to make your wife happy will only remind her of that poker game or the time you got drunk at a party and flirted with her sister.

Guys, we can’t win. All we can hope is to be far enough away from home on business that forgetting such a marital milestone is not only forgivable, it’s actually OK. Outer space is recommended.

On our first anniversary, I took my wife back to the place we spent our honeymoon. On our second anniversary, I probably cooked supper, or took out the garbage, or something. On our third anniversary I, uh, I think I got her a card. On our fourth anniversary … Well, after that it gets kind of blurry.

Then, one year-this year-I committed the unforgivable crime. I forgot. Guys, to put it into language we can understand, that’s like your wife forgetting the Super Bowl. It just shouldn’t be done.

But, as I sat in the church pew holding my wife’s hand, I knew all I needed to do today was smile and pick my dirty socks off the floor because she’d forgotten our anniversary, too.

I think maybe next year I’ll go bowling.
* * *
Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-Me State’s Most Spirited Spots,” is available from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com or tsup.truman.edu. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.