It’s a new year, and my husband is still unintentionally providing me with plenty of column fodder.
Here’s the first 2026 edition of #ThingsMyHusbandSays.
He’s been talking in his sleep
• Derek’s sweet tooth is legendary, but his dreams about baked goods can be disturbing. One night, I woke up to him mumbling about doughnuts.
“Doughnuts?” I asked, nudging his shoulder.
“Yeah, the big metal doughnut.”
Now, I’m really awake.
“What big metal doughnut?”
“The one from the sign. It’s too late, now.”
“Too late for doughnuts?”
“No, it fell off the sign, and I tried to stop it, but it crashed through the window.”
He rolled over and continued sleeping.
Me? I wanted to know if anyone got crushed by the big metal donut.
• Who hasn’t had a scary dream about dinosaurs? But Derek’s was oddly specific – and alliterative. He was yelling and thrashing around, so I woke him up.
“You’re having a bad dream,” I said. “Hush!”
Then I asked him what he was dreaming about.
“Triceratops,” he muttered. “In the tent! Not the BIG dinosaurs – little tiny ones.”
He sighed and rolled over, but I heard him muttering, “Little tiny triceratops …”
Derekisms
• Derek: I’m at Costco. Can I get you anything to eat?
Me: I’d love a nonfat yogurt swirl.
Derek: Where’s the yogurt squirrels?
I reminded him we don’t live in Idaho.
• He called our youngest son, Sam, to tell him about the business conference we were attending in Austin.
“All the headwigs are here early.”
• Him: I had Thanksgiving by myself in Flight School. I bought myself a Manhandler Dinner.
Me: Oh, my!
• I really hope some of his words become part of our national lexicon. Like this one: “People need to get off the political blandwagon.”
Life according to Derek
• Speaking of politics, after reading about yet another political sex scandal, Derek told Sam, “That’s the problem with mankind. They keep putting their wieners in the wrong places.”
• Reading online local news briefs to him is always entertaining. I read him one about a reported disorderly male Kung Fu fighting with traffic cones in a parking lot. His reply?
“I should go down there and help him; he’s probably outnumbered.”
• Me: How was your day?
Him: Pretty good till that truck ran into our building.
• His wildlife commentary makes road trips interesting.
“What the hell! A turkey just flew across the road! Did you see that? Who knew they could fly? Looked like a basketball flying across the sky!”
• Derek is also known for his critique of popular music. He especially loathes “Grenade” by Bruno Mars in which the singer vows, “I’d catch a grenade for ya.”
“When was the last time anyone threw a grenade at you?” fumed Derek. “I mean, my gosh, Bruno Mars has never been in combat. You don’t CATCH a grenade. What frickin idiot!”
Married life
• While organizing my shoe shelves the other day, I found a Hershey bar. I’d forgotten I’d stashed it there in the summer after the last time we made s’mores.
“Why did you hide a chocolate bar in your closet?” Derek asked.
“Every woman needs an emergency chocolate stash,” I replied.
“But it’s been there for five months!”
“I guess I haven’t had an emergency yet.”
“Well, you’re about to because now I know where you hide your stash.”
• Holidays can be stressful for husbands. One Christmas Eve, Derek was wrapping presents in the bedroom late at night. He came out looking agitated and poured himself a stiff drink. “This is gonna take a while,” he said. “A long time ago, I bought you a really cool gift, but now I can’t find it.”
(He eventually found it in his truck.)
• I was getting ready for work when I noticed something missing from a shelf in our bathroom. We had two Viking rubber ducks, but the lady Viking had vanished.
“Hey, what happened to Mrs. Viking Ducky? Have you seen her?” I hollered to Derek.
Silence.
Mumbling.
“What?”
“She was buried at sea,” he admitted.
He’d knocked her in the toilet when he went to flush early one morning and couldn’t retrieve her before she went down to her watery grave.
• We watched a movie where a young widow went to her husband’s closet and grabbed his flannel shirt to hold close. “I need to buy you some flannel shirts, so I have something to cuddle if anything happens to you,” I said.
“I’ll just wear my underwear for a week and put them under your pillow,” he replied.
His romance game may need some work, but his stellar quotability quotient more than makes up for it.
Cindy Hval 