Husband to Has-Ben
I didn’t know what it was at first. Bob and I would meet every Tuesday morning as we drug our trash bins to the street curb for pick-up. Both of us were dressed for work, me in my shirt and tie, Bob in the filthy jumpsuit the city issued him. The irony of a garbage man wheeling his bins out to the street just so he could pick them up later wasn’t lost on me.
“Morning Bob!” I begin, “Say, you only pick up the trash one day per week. What do you do the other six days? Is being a garbage man secretly the best job in the world or is there something I’m missing?” (suppressed snicker)
It took Bob a moment to reply. His face was downcast and his tone muted. “Do you have to ask the same thing every week?”
“What’s wrong Bob?”
He finally looked me in the eyes. “Wanda has been pestering me about where I’ve been throwing my dirty work clothes. She doesn’t seem to like it when I drape them over her mother but DANG that woman’s been visiting for almost three days now!” He unzipped the front of his jumpsuit and I leaped backward. The skin on his belly was covered in small, faint reddened areas.
“Oh no, Bob. She’s started pinching you again hasn’t she?”
*******
With the plight of abused women so well documented, it is easy to neglect the scourge that is the abused husband…or in this case a HAS-BEN (Husband Accosted, Scrotum Bereft, Emasculated, Neutered). Pinchings and ugly looks are only the beginning of this horrible spiral of events. Soon, the abusing woman is going around in public without make-up. It can even go so far as withholding the “kissy-kissy.”
HAS-BENs aren’t always easy to spot. They may wander about society with brave faces but at home they cower in front of the TV watching a sporting event….any sporting event to escape the pain that is interacting with their spouse. In Bob’s case, he was in front of ESPN from the moment he got home until he went to bed. His health was even effected! In an effort to comfort himself, he’d developed a snack food dependency.
Here are some of the undocumented traits of the abusive wife….
1) Sends her husband on errands…in the house! She’ll send her HAS-BEN after children’s clothes, express displeasure at his selections, then send him back to try again. Rinse & Repeat. The abusing wife will to fetch a million things or perform other errands for no better reason than, “I’m already in bed.” Outrageous but true!!
2) If abusing wives are busy, they require their HAS-BENs to be busy as well. “Why should he not do household chores when I’m still doing them?!” She reasons. “Whether he’s done or not with his duties, he should still be working or at least helping me!”
3) Among the most devious of these tactics is serving food the HAS-BEN despises. The offending wife sadistically thinks, “I know he doesn’t like squash and there are a hundred different vegetables he would eat instead but…I think I’ll fix them anyway.” Treacherous!
I did nothing for Bob and years later he was a three and fifty pounds and resorting to online role playing games in order to avoid his wife. At that point it was too late to change the HAS-BEN back into a husband. If you know anyone who needs help, please, take a moment to call 1-888-HAS-BEEN to speak with someone who may or may not care.
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