SIMPLE MAN OR SIMPLETON?

September 16, 2026

by Janet Mitchum

Rusty is going out of town. I know you are probably as excited as I am about this, but let me assure you, like the Terminator, he’ll be back. As you know, I’ve caught more than my share of grief from his last couple of columns. Sometimes, he portrays me as an uncaring wife. Let me assure you, I am a caring wife. It’s just, well, it’s just that living with Rusty has made me a little bit crazy. I am not telling you anything that he, himself, does not readily admit to.

For example, him getting hurt all the time, and me, seeming to be less than concerned. You may think I’m exaggerating, but Rusty cannot go outside to work in the yard or on the farm, that he does not come home bleeding. He’s usually not seriously wounded, just scratched and cut up. Most of the time, he is not even aware of it.

“You are bleeding again,” I’ll say.

“I am?” he’ll reply, as he looks over his hands and arms. When he finally finds the wound, he’ll look it over and say, “Oh well, I’ll live.”

Once, I asked him if it bothered him that he always seemed to be bleeding. “Naaaa,” he replied. “That’s the reason I don’t have high blood pressure. I figure if I didn’t bleed every once in a while, all that blood my body produces would build up and I’d have a blow-out or somethin’.”

A simple answer, from a simple man.

As I said earlier, living with Rusty can be trying. He is not an organized person. He cannot put anything back where it belongs. He can’t even put trash in the trash can. As an example, I kept finding little pieces of paper on the floor and on the bed in our bedroom. These were little identifying tags that the laundry puts on his shirts. When he puts on a shirt, he plucks the little tag off, and lets them drop wherever he happens to be standing. I picked one up the other day.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked.

He looked at the tag. “Is this a trick question?” he asked back.

“No,” I replied.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s one of those tags off of my shirts.”

“Do you know where I found it?”

“Where?”

“On the floor,” I replied. “I’m tired of picking them up. How hard is it for you to put them in the trash?”

“Aw, hon,” he said and reached over and put his arm around my waist, then pulled me close to him. “Just think. One of these days I’m gonna die, and you’re gonna be cleanin’ up in here, and you’re gonna find one of these things, and you’re gonna think about me, and break down.”

I looked up at him. “No,” I said. “I’m going to break out.”

“Break out?”

“Yes. I’m going to break out the shovel, and then I’m going to go and dig you up, and I’m going to staple the little piece of paper to your forehead.”

He got the picture. Well, at least for a little while.

Many years ago, we were riding his motorcycle. He pulled over on the side of an old oil topped road we were on, and he climbed off to look across a field at a coyote he saw in the distance. They stared at each other for a while and then he waved at the coyote and walked back. Why, I don’t know.

I was still sitting on the back of the bike, with my helmet still on. He looked at me and grinned. He has the most mischievous grin.

“What?” I said.

“Nothin’,” he replied. “I was just thinkin’ that this would be a good place for me to get a kiss,” then he raised his eyebrows a couple of times.

Just as he said that, I sneezed. I have allergies and the pollen was really bad that day.

“Yuck,” Rusty said. “I think I’ll pass on that kiss for the time bein’, if you don’t mind.”

“Get me a tissue, please,” I asked, as I removed the helmet.

“I ain’t got one,” he said.

“I saw a roll of toilet tissue in your saddle bag, get it.”

“But that’s for emergencies.”

“This is an emergency,” I stated.

“I don’t know. I might need that sometime.”

“If you don’t get it for me, you are going to need it right now, understand?”

He thought about it for a second, then got me the tissue.

Speaking of tissue, last week, I was under the weather with a sinus infection and we were running low on tissue at the house. I gave Rusty a shopping list of things I needed, including the tissue, and asked him to go to the store and get them. My nose was pretty tender and I had written “Puffs” on the list.

When he got home, I asked for the tissue.

“What tissue?” he said.

“The tissue I asked you to get.”

He reached into his pocket and retrieved the list. It was crumpled into a ball. He uncrumpled the list and looked at it. “Ha!” he said. “See here, there ain’t no tissue.”

I looked at the list and pointed. “What is that, then?” I asked.

He looked, scratched his head. “That’s tissue?”

“What did you think it was?”

Then he opened the grocery sack and pulled out CoCoa Puffs, Rice Puffs, and Cheese Puffs. Then he grinned sheepishly. I thought you meant these. I didn’t know which one, so I got’em all.

I tried to get mad, but I just shook my head instead. Wait a minute. You don’t think he did that on purpose, so he won’t have to go shopping for me again, do you?

Hmmm. He might not be as simple as I thought.