Oh, the dumb jokes my dear wife has to put up with from me! The stupid jokes that are painful to hear, making you feel embarrassed for all of humanity.

I remember how, a few weeks before we got married, we were out shopping for a bed that would be later delivered to our new home -- our apartment. I had never shopped for a bed before. I'd always been "given" a bed, with no opportunity really to pick out my own mattress and box springs.

Shopping for a bed is sort of an unusual experience because you pretty much have to lay down on them in order to know whether you like them. So, here we are at the furniture store, the clerk standing over us (like he was fearing we might shoplift a queen-sized mattress), and trying out different beds.

Then I said it ... one of the worst bad jokes of my life.

"Gosh, honey, we're not even married yet and here I am bed-hopping already!"

Like I said, the woman ought to be sainted for having put up with my bad jokes all these years. We have our 20th anniversary this fall. It's not like she didn't know what she was getting into though. We dated for over seven years before we got married.