Upstairs, my wife’s sexual rebirth and newfound happiness was so bursting with gaiety that she cold barely walk on most days. Meanwhile, I spent my days working to exhaustion and learning about pickling. Pickling all sorts of vegetables, eggs, and even cheese!
 

But as with any story, there is a beginning, middle, and end. This is the middle part: Arturo’s gaze wandered. He began having stress. He began sleeping some nights at his ex's.

Not enough money.
 

No healthcare.
 

What could he do? How could he be a fit lover with so much eating at his mind?
 

My wife soon began slipping into the dank confines of my first-floor living/working studio. Sometimes she wanted to talk. A few times she allowed herself to be touched, but only briefly. At times she would even taste a pickle (or two!). It was during one of these wholesome visits that, with a stroke of my beard, I concocted the most brilliant of adult ideas. We would declare my wife’s boyfriend as a dependent and place him on our insurance plan.
 

Problem solved!
 

My wife and her boyfriend have their sex life once again, and Arturo is also very happy with his new health care plan. I have also mastered, IMHO, what is the world’s first successful pickled Manchego dill cheese. Pickled dill cheese! Who would have thought! All because high insurance premiums...wow!