About once a month I get paid $40 to improvise on morning radio shows around the country.

Usually this takes about ten minutes and involves me staying in my pajamas and waiting for some station host in Tulsa or Phoenix or somewhere to call me, set up the situation, give me a restaurant or locale to plug, and then I improvise an argument with a pretend boyfriend or a guy I went out with once and never called again. But sometimes, like this morning, it's weirder and even more indicative of how stupid everything is.

Today I was playing a young wife, one whose husband just got back from his second tour of Iraq. And things just weren't the same (obviously). He was distracted, he was distant, he just wasn't THERE. And of course, like the dumb little lady we all must secretly be, I was to assume that he was cheating on me. Of course, I said, I talked to my preacher, I talked to my friends, I TRIED to talk to him, but talking is hard. I needed the radio station to help me to know, once and for all: is my man my man or is he just a man that I am married to that uses his manness for someone else, man or woman? ...Well, that's a little deeper than we've ever gone, but hey, that's my motivation.

The station had a little trick up their sleeve to help little old "me" with this burning question. They were going to call my husband, pretend to be a new florist in town offering a promotion to send a dozen roses to ANYONE that he wanted to for free. Now, if he was cheating, wouldn't he send them to his mistress? We all assume.

So we call him up (also an actor, or perhaps, more aptly, someone else in their underwear in Brooklyn), he takes the bait (after a decent performance of, "Huh? What? Is this going to cost me anything? Anyone I want? No hidden costs? Whelp. Okay.") And he decides to send the flowers to...his wife. ME. Aw. Except GUESS WHAT SUCKA!! I'm on the other line! This is a 90s style party line prank and you're the butt of it!

Except, he's not...I am.

After taking the time to thank all the men and women who fight for our freedom (I assume they mean the real ones, not just the pretend ones they have on the line), the radio DJs turn it all on me. What's wrong with me that I don't trust my man? What's wrong with me that I can't understand all that he's been through, all that he's done in the name of me, my country, and my freedom? Am I selfish? Naive? Just plain dumb? Because I'm good at my job (or I realize that my job is only good if I keep it short and sweet and minimize the amount of time I have to "work" for my $40) I apologize (not for needing to call a radio station to figure out my marital problems in the first place), but for not trusting him, for not giving him the space he needs to re-navigate the world of mini-vans, church groups, and new florists with wildly generous promotions...I say I love him, that I love the radio station for helping me to see that trust (never mind the essence of the prank) is really the key to any relationship. "Do I get the dozen roses anyway? Haha?" I sweetly ask with a subtle southern drawl.

No.

That after all, was part of the ploy to get at the truth. But what is the truth? For the first time, I was compelled to hunt down the radio station on the internet and try and figure out when the segment aired so that I could call in and give my real two cents, push some buttons, stick up for myself, myself! Tell Mr. Part-time PTSD that he's just as responsible to his wife's deep dark insecurities as she is to his deep dark war things and maybe ask if his mistress is allergic to flowers...yeah! What about that scenario?! Huh?! HA! It's not so cut and dry faithful listeners of the southern US! No matter what I said this morning sometimes with an accent and sometimes without one!

But I couldn't find the station.