“I look like a hippopotamus.”

“You do not know look like a hippopotamus!” He laughed.

He caught me sitting down in the vintage green chair in our bedroom after I’d tried on a pretty crop top that I’d grabbed on my way to check out at the store yesterday. I’d tried it on with multiple pairs of high rise shorts and pants trying to get it to work because the color is the perfect shade of red for me and it’s 100% linen making it perfect for summer.

“Yes I do! I have a little head, a big belly, and a flat butt.”

“You do not!”

“And I have a big mouth that I swallow people whole with.”

“You do not look like a hippopotamus.” He laughed.

But it was that laugh, you know, when someone is trying to be nice and deny your point, but you’ve just painted a picture so clearly for them they can’t not see it now. It was that kind of laugh. I’m not offended. I’m the one who painted the picture, and I stand by it.

But I’m also not sure if he was laughing because he realized, “Oh my goodness she kind of does look like a hippopotamus.” Or because he knows (from personal experience) if someone bothers me too much or pushes me too far, I will open my mouth and swallow them whole so to speak or that secretly (but not so secretly) he agreed with both

In my husband’s defense, he tells me I’m beautiful almost every day, and I tell him he’s a liar.

We women. We’re brutal to ourselves and to our husbands. Bless us and bless them. And bless the hippopotamuses.