In sickness and in health. Yeah, yeah, I know. I said those words. So did DH. Does the "sickness" part also apply to deafness? I mean, a prolonged a case of "selective deafness"?

The selective deafness (literally) came crashing home to me one Sunday night, back when DD (darling daughter) was a baby and we were still living in the City.

DH out in the living room, watching the Yankees crush the Cardinals. No resentment from me there: DH had dutifully become a Yankees fan, forsaking his St. Louis upbringing. I appreciated the assimilation.

And hey, have I mentioned? I'm a low maintenance chick. Don't ask a lot of DH, who knocks down the mortgage payments better than I do (thank you, glass ceiling). DH is also funny as hell, plays guitar better than Clapton, and, like the best Wall Street traders, knows when to hold his positions. Couldn't ask for more, me being low-maintenance and all.

So I was cool when DH stopped buying birthday, Christmas, anniversary gifts for me after DD came along. Now was time for the 529-college saving plan. Baby music-school tuition. Top-of-the-line nanny salary.

No Gucci bag for me? I can deal.

But what I'm finding is that I cannot deal with DH's selective deafness.

I'm not an "euwwwwe" chick. I don't scream out for DH if a cockroach scurries across the kitchen. (I kill it myself quite deftly).

I don't scream for DH, now that we're in the burbs, when I'm lugging cords of firewood in from the car. (I've figured out how to kick open the back door and hold it open with my butt while I haul the wood inside.)

I don't call DH at the office to ask stupid questions ("What do you want me to wear to the client's cocktail party tonight: MILF-style or Soccer Mom-style?")

So when I do call, or scream, it's generally for a very good reason.

There was that spring night, four years ago in the City, with DD in the bathtub. Rinsing the soft skin of her back. The open window catching the warm breeze.

Then the roaring of fire trucks, screeching of ambulances and police cars came through the window, breaking the sweet bath-time trance. DD started crying, so I jumped up to close the window. Then - bam! - the huge, heavy, pre-War, metal-bottomed bathroom window slammed down onto my right hand. All four were fingers trapped, pinned down by what other tenants had warned us were "guillotine windows."

Now, with metal digging into my trapped digits, I knew with painful clarity what they had meant. My left hand not strong enough to raise the humungous window off my right hand. DD in the tub began leaning over her bathtub safety ring to experiment with putting her face in the bath water.

Me, the non-screamer, began screaming my ass off: "DH! DH! DH! Help me! Help me! Please DH help!"

No response from the living room.

With every ounce of lung power, I screamed again "DH!! DH!! DH!! COME, HELP!"

The sobs, the screaming. Mine and DD's now. I couldn't get to DD in the tub, to keep her sitting up. My world was spinning.

Finally, from the hallway just outside the bathroom, in a slightly exasperated tone, I heard "What?" with the "t" very pronounced.

"Come! Come, help! Grab your daughter! Save me!"

DH deigned to enter the bathroom. "What's up?" he said.

"Get the baby! Lift the window!" I was screaming in full panic — and pain — mode.

"She's fine," he said. "You can't very well stop her from crying if you're over there by the window."

"Lift the window!" I shriek.

"Whoa, drill sergeant," DH said dismissively. Then, DH finally saw my stuck hand. He rushed to raise the window — with both hands, I might add.

"Wow! How'd that happen?" he asked, eying my bloody knuckles. Sort of.

Ignoring his questions, sobbing, I got our daughter out of the bathtub, then ran to the freezer for an ice pack for my hand. Maybe a more high-maintenance wife would have asked DH to get the ice pack for her, she being in pain and all with a mangled hand.

But not me.

I'm sitting in the kitchen, icing my hand, when DH wandered in. "So what just happened?" he said, like a cop taking a routine police report.
Not, "Hey I'm sorry. What can I do?"

I guess this is what I get for years of being that stoic WASP chick with her low-maintance ways. No reason to comfort me. I'm the tough cookie!
(Besides, if he'd asked "What can I do?" I might have told him to go f#@k himself. Except that we don't use profanity with each other).

I looked up at him. "Can't talk now. Going to the emergency room."

"Ah, maybe you're overreacting."

Waiting for the elevator, through tears, I said, "I don't ask for much. So, when I do call out for you, why can't you just come?"

ER doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital told me that three knuckles were broken, and nerves in two of my fingers were damaged, and that I should stay overnight for hand surgery the next day.

But I, tough cookie, am needed at home. Am needed at work. I took all the Percocet they would give me, and grabbed a cab back home at 1 am.

By 2 am, DH was apologetic. But I couldn't utter a word for 30 minutes. When I finally did, I just eked out, "You don't come when I call anymore."

Then the Percocet kicked in, and I cried myself silently to sleep.