Randy Ingermanson has published six novels and received about a dozen awards for his writing. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UC Berkeley and is the entire software department for Vala Sciences, a San Diego biotechnology company. Randy is the inventor of the "Snowflake Method," used by novelists around the world to design their novels. He the publisher of the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, the world's largest electronic magazine on writing fiction. More than 1000 novelists read his daily blog, the Advanced Fiction Writing Blog. Randy's goal is to become Supreme Dictator For Life, and he may have already succeeded. Visit his site at www.SupremeDictatorForLife.com.

I had thought cleaning out the garage would be an easy task that should take only an hour while my wife was in town, but the job turned out to be just a bit harder than that. Boxes of old books were stacked in the corner. An ancient leather easy chair that I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with was shoved into another corner. When I found an aluminum baseball bat covered in dust on a high shelf, I wondered when I’d last used it.

The soft chuffing engine of a sparkling new truck interrupted my thoughts. I set down the bat and went out to see who owned this gleaming chrome monstrosity.

My plumber, Sam, hopped out of the truck, beaming. “You’re just the feller I was hoping to see today.” He grinned at me like a Halloween pumpkin. “How’s your Wife doing?”

For a second, I just stared at Sam. “My wife’s in town shopping. Why should you care about her?”

Sam shook his head. “Nope, nope, nope. Not talking about the women kind of wife. I just lately made up a new abbrevification. ‘Wife’ is short for ‘Writing Life.’ You gotta remember that the word writing starts with a ‘W’ and then you just take the last buncha letters of life. See how that works? It’s complicated, but—”

“Yeah, yeah, I see how it works. But why not just call it ‘writing life’ and be done with it?”

“Wouldn’t fit on the truck.” Sam took my elbow and guided me around to the side of his truck. In garish purple and white lettering were the words Sam’s Plumbing and Wife Coaching.

“Wife Coaching?” I thought for a second that I’d heard everything, but then I remembered some of Sam’s other business ventures. “Is, um, business still a little slow, what with the recession?”

“Nope, nope, never better! I’m busy, busy. But I figgered it ain’t never hurt nobody to de-versify. And then I started thinking about how a big-shot author like you probably had lotsa money, and how a little Wife coaching could turn that into big heaping, boatloads of money.”

“What sort of coaching?”

Sam reached into the cab of his truck and pulled out a sheaf of flyers. Several of them fell on the ground. He handed one to me. “How about we just sit down in your house and I’ll give ya a free Wife-coaching session for starters?”

I scanned the flyer: “Is your Wife all that you expected when you signed up? Are you sick and tired of a Wife that don’t live up to what you dreamed of when you was a kid? Want to learn how to improve your Wife? Or get a whole new Wife that’ll be better than you ever thunk possible? Then Sam’s Wife-Coaching service is fer you!”

I stopped reading and tried desperately to keep from falling on the ground laughing. “You do realize there’s a certain amount of . . . ambiguity in your flyer, don’t you?”

Sam shook his head. “I’ll take yer word for it. I ain’t quite sure what am-big-you-ity is, but maybe we could talk about it after yer first lesson.”

The sun poked through a hole in the clouds and I realized that I’d been working hard for over an hour and it was time for a break. “Let’s go into the house and talk about this. And maybe we could reword your flyer so it’s a little clearer about what services you’re actually offering.

Sam grinned at me and grabbed a shiny new leather briefcase, then pushed the door shut. “Like my new truck?” “Brand-new. Only got eighteen miles on it. I wrote it off as a business expense when I decided to de-versify.”

I shielded my eyes from the glare from the enormous chrome bumpers. “It’s . . . great.”

We went inside and I got both of us a Coke. “Okay, Sam, we need to talk about that flyer of yours. Matter of fact, we need to talk about that abbreviation of yours. Come to think of it, we need to talk about your whole business model.”

We sat down in my office. Sam opened his briefcase and pulled out a pad of paper. “Best get started, then. What was you expecting when you started out with your Wife?”

I just looked at him, trying to figure out if he was serious. “Sam, you do realize that it sounds like you’re criticizing my wife, don’t you?”

Sam studied his thick fingers. “It’s an abbrevification. Maybe it’s too complicated for you, but I like it. Besides, I’m getting it trademarked, which is real expensive, case you hadn’t heard, and I ain’t gonna waste my money changing it now.”

I drummed my fingers on my desk.

“Well, then, since you ain’t cooperating,” Sam said, “let’s move on to the next question. What are you willing to do to have a Wife that performs to your expectorations?”

I spewed a mouthful of Coke all over my shirt, and then said a number of words that my publishers won’t let me write in my books. I went to change into a clean shirt. When I got back to my office, Sam was looking at a shelf of my books.

“You ain’t sold too many of these. You got lotsa extras in them boxes in the corner.”

I scowled at him. “I’ve sold plenty of these books. That’s why I stock them.”

Sam pulled out his papers. “When did ya realize that your Wife just wasn’t up to snuff?”

I glared at him. “My wife is perfectly up to snuff. Stop criticizing my wife!”

Sam held up a thick paw. “Denial.” He wrote the word laboriously on his pad. “That’s real good. That’s like the first step on the way to fixing your Wife.”

“I don’t want to fix my wife!”

“Temper, temper!” Sam shook his head. “That’s good, too. Anger and all that. Helps get ya focused on changes. Anger is real good. So I think that’s about enough for the freebies. After this, I need to start charging you—”

CRASH!

A metallic crunch resounded through the neighborhood.

Sam dashed to the window, peered through the curtains, and then raced outside.

I followed him, wondering what was the matter.

CRASH!

“No!” Sam bellowed. “No, no, no! That truck is brand-new. Only got eighteen miles on—”

CRASH!

My wife appeared from around the side of Sam’s truck, bearing my old baseball bat. She took a wicked swing at the door of Sam’s truck.

CRASH!

Sam dived across the hood of the truck and grabbed for the bat, missing it by a hair. “What do you mean destructifying a man’s truck for?”

My wife held up a torn and muddy flyer and shook it in Sam’s face. “What do you mean by this? What’s this about getting a whole new Wife? What’s this about not living up to expectations?”

Sam grinned. “Well, see, I’m starting a new line of business: Wife Coaching.”

My wife swung the bat hard at the driver’s side window, smashing it into a thousand little pieces. “I’m starting a new line of business: objecting to your new line of business.”

Sam grabbed at the bat again, and this time he caught it. He wrestled it out of her grip and raised it high in the air. “That just ain’t polite. Now let me explain about my abbrevification—”

My wife yanked open the door of his truck. “You can explain it to somebody else. Get out of here before I take an ice pick to your tires!”

Sam leaped into the cab and started the engine. He gunned out of the driveway and shot away up the street.

I was laughing so hard I collapsed on the ancient leather easy chair.

My wife stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at me. “You have ten seconds to explain what this is about.”

It took me eight of those seconds to catch my breath. “I held both hands and made two quote marks in the air. “Wife,” I said. “Writing Life. It’s an abbrevification, get it?”

She thought about that for about a minute. I could see the wheels turning in her mind. The thousand crazy things Sam’s done in the past. “Yeah, I get it.”

“So, am I in trouble, then?”

She shrugged and then came over and sat on my lap and snuggled close. “If this column were real-life instead of fiction, and if Sam were somebody you hadn’t made up, then you would be. But it isn’t and he ain’t and you’re not.”

Which just goes to show that even when my writing life doesn’t quite live up to my expectorations, my wife does.