What do you do? Do you admit you were wrong? Do you hide the truth and never let her know she was right? Do you change your name, move to an island, and declare yourself a king?

Or do you steer into the skid and just accept the utter and complete humiliation?

I know, this is the worst nightmare for most husbands or partners.

Well, I may be forced to admit it.

Mostly because it’s one of those things The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World would notice.

See, we needed a new faucet for our laundry room, so she went out and bought one. She politely asked the knowledgeable clerk what would be best, told him what we had, and gave him a good idea of our price range.

Sounds pretty sensible, right?

In hindsight, it was.

But I found a nifty, high-end one at a massively discounted price – one that had a long spout, could power-wash the paint off a car, and doubled as a bidet.

However, like when I got an 800lb laptop that had the processing power of North Korea, I may have over-thought this one.

My first realization came when I went to install it. Sadly, someone built a mass of shelves under our laundry sink and did something funky with the drainage (and by ‘funky’ I mean not to any code ever written anywhere.)

I didn’t have a small enough head to fit into the tight space.

Worse, all that complex aqua-tech was a difficult install at the best of times, and needed some specific tools that I did not have.

That bummed me out. It meant I would have to bring in a plumber.

When I phoned for one, I asked for a plumber with a small head.

They said they don’t take those kind of requests – which is unfortunate because the more I think about it, the more I think a small-headed plumber would be in great demand.

Anyway, when the movie-star-handsome plumber arrived to install it, he said, “Hmmm, I could put the fancy one in, but it’ll take some time, and time will cost you a lot of money.”

“Like, ah, how much?” I asked.

“See that car out there?”

“The Mustang?”

He nodded. “Like that kind of money.”

“Gotcha.”

“Get a simple one,” he said.

“Like the Moen, 1228 two-hole chrome one?”

“Exactly.”

I didn’t tell him that was what my wife had chosen.

“Send that other one back to Skynet,” he said. “Or wherever you got it.”

“Ok,” I said, hanging my head low.

I went back to the store where I returned the first faucet and rebought it.

“Hey, didn’t I see you the other day?” the clerk asked. “You returned this, right?”

“Nope, not me, another chubby old guy. We’re easy to get mixed up.”

“No, you told us your wife had bought this by mistake.”

I had no answer for that. I made a sound instead. “Errrruhm.”

“Wait, your wife didn’t make a mistake, did she? She was right, wasn’t she?”

“Maybe.”

 “Oh, man, I feel for you, I really do. There’s a support group for husbands who’ve had their lives shattered.”

“Give me the number,” I said.

He shook his head, sadly, like he was about to put down his dog. “There you go, champ. I can’t say it happens to all of us, but it happens to a few. A sad few.”

I went back home.

At least we had a good, working faucet.

Kind of a win, right?

Does it really matter who was right? Especially if it wasn’t me?