Wife Rule #80: Sometimes Things Work Out Better Than Expected

There are many times when life feels like one disaster after another: another waste-of-time-and-money first date; another broken appliance; another failed attempt at solving a tough problem; another foot-in-my-mouth guffaw in some public setting; another runny nose and cough to cherish; another expensive car repair; or another chance to worry about someone you love whose problems make your own seem small, just to cite a few examples.

But every once in a while life gives you a nice surprise. Kind of like walking into a public men's restroom, dreading the sticky mess that's sure to be on the floor, the filthy toilets, and the empty soap container; and instead finding a freshly-mopped, Mr. Clean-worthy, sparkling experience where you get to be the one to break the tissue paper seal on the toilet, and there's not only soap, but also hot water! Yes, every once in a while life exceeds your expectations.

My wife and I enjoyed one of those nice surprises the other day when we took our kids to the pumpkin patch.

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DISCLAIMER: JUST IN CASE YOU THINK I WRITE TOO MANY WIFE RULES THAT HAVE THE WORD "POOP" IN THEM, LET ME REMIND YOU THAT MY WIFE AND I PROCESS APPROXIMATELY 2190 DIRTY DIAPERS EACH YEAR (MORE DURING LEAP YEARS), SOME OF WHICH LEAK, SO THE SUBJECT COMES UP IN OUR FAMILY. LET ME ALSO REMIND YOU THAT PUMPKIN PATCHES ARE FOUND ON FARMS, AND FARMS CONTAIN ANIMALS, AND ANIMALS CONTAIN POOP. THE WORD "POOP" WILL APPEAR IN THIS WIFE RULE. MORE THAN ONCE. GET USED TO THE IDEA.

OH, AND JUST FOR GOOD MEASURE, I WILL ALSO USE THE WORD "FARTING."
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The Pumpkin Patch has been a fun Halloween tradition for many years now. We have tried quite a few patches, and the surviving ones have all Darwinially evolved into more or less the same thing: animals to pet (and poop to avoid), junior spook alleys, corn or pumpkin cannons, haystack slides, a hay ride, and a corn maze (oh, and there's also pumpkins there, but they're kind of not the point anymore). We finally based our decision about which pumpkin patch to visit on three factors:

1) The winning pumpkin patch's hay ride featured teenagers dressed up as licensed fictional characters such as Cinderella, Shrek, and Darth Vader, spaced at regular intervals along the ride, who are supposed to shower the hay-riders with candy as we drive by and gawk at them and shout "CANDYCANDYCANDYCANDY!!!" at the top of our lungs. Apparently most of the costumed teenagers are rather dissatisfied with their job of standing there for hours, out in a plowed field, in near-freezing weather, dressed as someone they used to idolize like ten whole years ago, but who hasn't been cool for at least five years now. I can tell this because most of them either throw not nearly enough candy, or they throw it way too hard. But no matter, the candy hay ride is what the kids really come for, so we went to the pumpkin patch where we knew what to expect, sulking costumed teenagers and all.

2) The winning pumpkin patch allowed us to enjoy the hayride and all the other kiddie fun for only $5, which did not include the compulsory ticket for the corn maze, like some of the other patches did.

3) The winning pumpkin patch was the most sincere (I'm sorry, I just had to throw in a shout-out to Linus and the Great Pumpkin).

As it turned out, my wife had a coupon that, for our family of six paying individuals (plus a six-month-old freebie-Beebie), would get us corn maze passes for the same price as we would pay to only do the kiddie stuff.

So we got corn maze tickets too, and that's where the pleasant surprise came in.

Don't ask me why, but I have been rather obsessed with going into a corn maze for many years now. Maybe it's that I used to spend hours drawing mazes on paper when I was young. Or that I used to spend hours writing computer programs to generate mazes when I was a little older. Or that I love hiking through the maze-like fins and canyons in the desert. Or maybe it was the movie Labyrinth. Naw, that movie wasn't actually very good, except for the farting rocks scene (which my friend Alan and I used to rewind and watch over and over and over again, until tears were streaming down our juvenile little faces). But still, I'm obsessed with mazes.

But my wife's not, and for several years, she always went to a corn maze as a leader in our church's youth group, and afterwards she didn't really want to go again. No Halloween maze for me. Boo-hoo.

But this year, because of the coupon, it was free. I turned my wife's shopping logic back on her: "Just think of how much money we'll save by including the corn maze tickets!" I also promised her that if the kids didn't like it, we could always just turn around and exit early, although deep down I doubted my ability to make good on this promise once we were satisfyingly lost in the labyrinth.

We got pumpkins and did kiddie stuff until it was dark. Only then did we notice that the corn maze wasn't lit, like others we had seen. Still, we girded up our loins, and herded up the fruit of our loins, and grabbed our emergency flashlight, and ventured into the corn.

We wandered in Phase 1 of the maze for quite a while. We got lost. We hid in the corn and scared each other. We whimpered a little bit. We fought over holding the flashlight. We argued over being the leader. We finished Phase 1 and had so much fun we attempted Phase 2. We did it all over again, only we got more lost and eventually came back to the central hub in a wheel, about the only recongnizeable spot in the maze. Thankfully, we had carefully memorized the way we came into the hub from the entrance, so when we ended up there again, we just went out through the entrance. But we cheered anyway.

The people on the hayride clapped for us, and Scott did a jump-kick for joy.

And we all--that includes my wife, and every one of my kids--had fun. No one got hurt. No one wandered off and got separated. No one whined about being tired (much). No one had to take an emergency poop in the corn and use dried up corn leaves for...never mind.

So sometimes things work out better than expected. And when it happens, we have all the more to be grateful for.