(Warning, there is some  humor in this piece. It is okay to laugh, even in Amerca.)

This afternoon, i turned to Maria and asked sort of jokingly if she might be a Trophy Wife. Without blinking, she turned the hose right on me and chased me into the car. I guess not.

When you grow older, there are certain things you expect to leave behind, like the prospect of fighting for your honor or that of your  wife. I mean, I am 70 years old, and have not been in a fistfight for at least 60 years and do not remember every coming close to winning one. My father only taught me one thing – to turn the Red Sox baseball channel on. He did not teach me to fight, he knew that would be hopeless.

Since my wife is considerably tougher and more agile than I am – I have seen her angry – I think I have left my brawling days over women behind. In fact, I skipped them entirely in my life.

But maybe not.

This morning, as I stopped in the Round House Cafe to meet a friend, a man came up to me. I vaguely recognized him, but could not recall his name. He startled me by telling me, “you know I just want to say that your wife looks terrific, I really admire her style, the way she looks, the way she dresses. Would you tell her for me?”

I am not in the habit of taking compliments for my wife, who I love, and everything he said was true.

You should tell her, I mumbled ungratefully.  Maria is herself, wherever she goes, and she has the pure soul of the artist, she always dresses with style and individualism. But why was this man coming up and saying this to me?

Yesterday, while we were visiting Ed Gulley, he looked at me and said, “hey, I love the sparkle in your wife’s eyes! Do you see it?” He seemed smitten. Of course, I see it, I said, perhaps a bit defensively. Did he think me too old or dead to notice it?

This afternoon, I went into the Food Co-op and a volunteer there came up to me and said “hey, I just love the way your wife looks and dresses. She just has her own style and I admire that. And she is so nice!” He went on and on.

Again, I agreed, but was not sure to say beyond that. Were all the men in my town wanting to tell me how much they liked and admired my wife? Should I be upset about this, or perhaps more vigilant.

And then, later, at the Post Office, a man I did know came up to me and said he had seen Maria the other day and loved her style and her great smile. “You’re older, aren’t you?, he said with a distinctly insincere smile. “Looks like you have a Trophy Wife!”

It was one of those stupid yuk-yuk-take an elbow jokes that men used to offer about women all the time, usually about their breasts, but now try to hide. Once in awhile, I am mistaken for a normal man.

For the record, a Trophy Wife is not a complimentary or admiring term. It is an informal slang for a wife, usually young and  attractive, who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband, who is often regarded as a status symbol for the husband, who is often older, unattractive, and usually wealthy (strike two only.)

The term usually reflects negatively on the character or personality of both husband and wife. I don’t want to name names, but for the husband, it is usually a connotation of pure narcissism and the need to impress other men. The primary reason for a man to have a Trophy Wife is because he could not find attractive women to like him any other way.

I am 17 years older than Maria, a lifetime of wisdom and experience, I sometimes joke while she gags.

The man had the sneering look of a younger man who thinks he is really being funny, when in fact, he is just being stupid. I quickly went over my options in my mind. I could slap him across the face with my gloves, but I didn’t have any gloves, it was 80 degrees.

I could knee him in the stomach right around his groin, and  hope he would drop to the ground long enough for me to get outside and flee in the car. I could go and get Red and order him to attack and then run outside while Red snuggled with him and distracted him.

Since I have been writing all week about my desire to walk gently and softly into the world, getting into a fist fight with a younger and stronger man seemed inappropriate, and foolhardy. I did, after all, convert to Quakerism when I was younger. I wondered if I could get off a text message to Maria, she would have come rushing over and beaten the crap out of him, but how would that look?

I could also try the  emergency approach and pull open my shirt and show him my open heart surgery scar and say I felt faint. I could even clutch my chest and gasp for air. That would shut him up. Would he really want to beat up an old man with heart disease?

So instead I went with my gut. I am, after all, older and wiser these days.

I looked him right in the eye for a good 10 or 15 seconds – this rattles bullies and jerks, I learned in middle school – and said quietly, “sorry, my friend, but that’s not funny. To be called a  trophy wife is an insult both to my wife and to me. Please don’t do it again.”

As it was, he looked startled and apologized, quickly and sincerely. He meant it as a joke, he said, sorry, and turning red, he rushed off down the hall to mail his letters.

So it was one of those time and space encounters, funny but not funny, about nothing, but about something.

I am not wealthy, but I am an older man, and I am sure he is not the first person to sneer at that, I know he isn’t.

I remember when Maria and I disclosed our relationship after we were both divorced, someone anonymously e-mailed me and joked “well, I bet the old equipment isn’t working the way it used to. Hope you can satisfy your wife?”

And that was ten years ago.

In the new America, with its anonymous digital caverns full of trolls and cowards, such messages are now commonplace, and we can thank Mark Zuckerburg for that. His software does not stop cruelty, either. All it collects is money.

I wrote my messenger back, saying, “you are not kidding. I am changing my vitamins.” He went away.

While hiding from Maria in the car, I re-thought this day. And started smiling. You, madam, are no trophy wife.

And here’s what I take on this memorable day, when I almost had a fist fight defending my wife’s honor. Stuff that in your pockets boys, the old man got the girl.

I am so very proud of us. And of me.

My wife is a remarkable woman, proud, strong, smart and stylish. Other people like her and love her also. But I got her first, old rascal that I am, and love her more every single day.

A real man would be tickled to death about that.