ACT ONE: SCENE ONE: The sunny, rather disorderly kitchen of the Miller family, on a warm Saturday morning, somewhere in suburban Boston. Mr. Miller, the tall, tremendously handsome breadwinner of the family, and his drop-dead gorgeous wife (currently outfitted one of MR. Miller’s paint-stained and discarded sweatshirts to disguise her voluptuous figure,) are having breakfast. (French toast…frozen.) Their three bright, adorable children are in the toy- cluttered den, watching healthy, intellectually nourishing re-runs of “Sponge-Bob, Square Pants,” and spilling “Captain Crunch” and dribbles of milk on the carpeting, down the sofa cushions, and on one another.

MRS. Miller had arrived in the sunny kitchen a few minutes earlier, in something LESS than her usual sunny mood, having just stepped off the bathroom scales with the information that she has gained three pounds in one day. Were she a Blue Whale, Mrs. Miller explained rather testily to her sympathetic husband, who was reading the newspaper, such an increase in weight gain might have been acceptable.

“National Geographic says baby whales gain eight pounds an HOUR!” she lamented. “There must have been this terrible mix-up, at the hospital!”

Mr. Miller, well-accustomed, after more than twelve years of marriage, to his wife’s hyperbole and colorful manner of speech, simply nodded, and tried to attend to his copy of the “New York Times.”

“What would you do if I started smoking again?” Mrs. Miller asked idly, pushing a bit of burned French toast around the edge of her plate and watching her husband’s face carefully at the same time.

MR. Miller looked at her, as she knew he would, as though she were joking, or maybe insane.

“Are you in any real doubt about that?” he asked with a grin. (This was a humorous allusion to the fact that Mrs. Miller’s EARLIER smoking habit had been “cured” by a series of extremely unpleasant and painful spankings… an unconventional, but nonetheless effective method, of the handsome MR. Miller’s own invention.

“But, what if I had a REALLY good reason?” the lady suggested, with a certain degree of caution. The question sounded almost as stupid spoken aloud as when she had practiced it, coming downstairs, and her husband’s reaction was about what she had expected.

“A good reason?” he chuckled. “What? Like wanting to leave me with a pile of insurance money, maybe, after you die of lung cancer?”

“No,” she pouted. “And it wouldn’t be permanent, you know! I wouldn’t keep smoking long enough to do any harm, just long enough to lose a few pounds.”

Mr. Miller shook his head, and told MRS. Miller very firmly, and in VERY explicit detail, what would happen if he detected the odor of tobacco on HER, the premises, or ANY of their golden-haired moppets. (MR. Miller could be colorful, himself, when the need arose.) When Mr. Miller asked his wife if she required an immediate demonstration, she declined, very politely, and dropped the subject, forthwith.

* * * * *

The above conversation is NOT from an episode of “Desperate Housewives.” It’s discussion from just this morning, with my husband, Sam.

“That’s too stupid to even respond to,” Sam exploded, after I’d outlined my weight loss plan. “Jesus, Jo, you can’t be serious!”

“But I AM serious!” I insisted. “Since you made me quit, I’ve gained twenty-two pounds! I never had a problem with my weight all those years I smoked!” (ALWAYS try to blame things on your husband, wherever possible.)

“You COULD try laying off the peanut butter and jelly for lunch,” he said mildly, which was playing REALLY dirty. It’s the only thing the kids will eat. What? I should make two different meals?

“Or maybe taking a WALK once in a while?” he added, a veiled reference to the fact that I appear to have lost the use of my legs since Michael was born, and I HATE walking.
(In my opinion, if God had wanted us to walk, he wouldn’t have opened all those gas stations.)

“I’d rather have a plump wife than be a widower with three rotten kids to raise by myself,” Sam laughed. “Nobody else would be dumb enough to marry me after she met our kids, right?”

“This ISN’T funny!” I sputtered. “I look like a damned cow! A..a…” I ran out of similes.

Sam sighed, and reached for my hand. “You look terrific, babe. Beautiful. I’m not complaining.” (Men are SO egotistical! Like their sex drive is ALL that matters? Sam is not exactly discerning. HE was still turned on when I was nine months PREGNANT! )

“Of course you’re not!” I sneered. “You’re USED to it…all 22 pounds of disgusting whale blubber! I watch TV, though, and I know how this goes, Sam! Pretty soon you’ll start eyeing your secretary, and then…”

Sam laughed. “Margie is 64 years old, and she weighs MORE than you do. Hell, she weighs more than I do.”

I wasn’t giving up, yet. “Well, there are other women around you, all the time. What about that adorable little number who swishes in with the mail every morning?”

“Her name is Kaylie, and she has the IQ of salt,” Sam groaned.

I explained to Sam that it has been MY experience that girls who look like Kaylie do not NEED an IQ substantially higher than salt to get ahead in the world. Their breasts and asses are all they seem to need.

Sam leaned across the table and kissed me. “Why don’t we take the kids to your Mom’s, and go back to bed, so I can show you how I feel about YOUR breasts and ass?”

So, I threw the salt-shaker at him, and got MY plump ass bared and royally spanked with a plastic spatula. He was only kidding around, (maybe), but it stung like blazes, and it WAS only 8:28 in the morning. Not a good beginning for the weekend.

* * * * *

Over the years, since I first met Sam, one of our biggest problems, and the hardest to overcome, has been MY smoking. From MY point of view, I always smoked in moderation, and NOT excessively. ( I was using Mark Twain’s definition of “excessive”, of course, meaning that I only smoked one cigarette at a time.) Sam, unfortunately, is a fanatic on the subject. If there is someone smoking somewhere in China, RIGHT this minute, as there no doubt is, Sam is probably hot under the collar about it. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. China’s too far. If anybody in the next COUNTY is smoking, though, Sam is definitely hot under the collar about it. He’s that worst of all possible fanatics…a reformed smoker. Sam had been a non-smoker for five years before we got engaged, and it was a tribute to my devastating sexual allure and sparkling wit that he would date me at all. The fact is, I lied, which in my case is a fairly common reaction to any situation. I saw him, wanted him, and lied to him. “SMOKE? ME? NEVER!” The façade crumbled by our fourth date, but by then, he was under my spell, and hopelessly in love with me, naturally.

I admitted my sins, and promised solemnly to quit. Which was a good thing, because by that point, I was swilling down enough blue mouthwash and chewing enough spearmint Lifesavers every damned day to poison my liver and give myself diabetes, all to cover my tracks. Sam wasn’t fooled, of course. A reformed smoking zealot can smell a cigarette from a half-mile away. I just kept telling him I’d “been in a meeting.” On date five, he finally confronted me, but then, he cheated. He asked me to marry him at the same time.

Poor Sam. That may have been his first mistake. His second was trusting me when I swore that I would never touch the vile weed again.

Sam laughed. “ It won’t be that easy,” he assured me. “Take my word for it. There are programs out there that can help, though.” Sam, of course, had gone “cold turkey.” Sam has a will of iron, and has probably NEVER lied to himself, whereas I am my FAVORITE person to lie to.

The point of this story is to explain how, almost twelve years after we got married, I was still a sometime secret smoker, and why Sam put my secret smoking right at the TOP of the list of things for which I get spanked.

Yes. Spanked. This morning was NOT unique.

* * * * * *
This “book” is actually a diary…my diary, or excerpts from my diary. I had decided to call the collected excerpts “DDD”. Let me assure you that these three letters do NOT indicate my cup-size. They stand for “Domestic Discipline Diary.” This title sounded stupid, though, so I changed it to “Doing It Sam’s Way.” But, it’s still my diary. Most of it is “true”, (or at least pretty much the way I wrote it.) I tend to “embroider” a bit, for effect, (I am told,) and please don’t forget that I WAS writing this for my own amusement (?) and enlightenment, originally. I’ve changed the order of a few things, so they make more sense, and eliminated everything personal that doesn’t have to do with the subject at hand.

As I write this, smoking is finally ( I hope!) a Thing of the Past, but over the years, until I conquered the habit, my smoking (and LYING about smoking) accounted for a LOT of hard, painful moments spent in Sam’s company. Smoking was on the Zero Tolerance List, and I knew it, but for reasons I don’t fully understand, I could never seem to remember that cigarette smoke: a.) Travels. b.). Lingers, and c.) Remains on your clothing. D.) Is often associated with a lingering sting in the backside.

The thing is, Sam was always REALLY patient and helpful, at first, as long as I didn’t smoke in the house, or lie to him. When I smoked, I got a health lecture, a disappointed look, and that was about it. Those were the “good old days”, of course, before Sam and I had entered into this Domestic Discipline thing, (which I’ll explain in detail, later.)

Our second child, Jenny, was born in 1998, and shortly afterward, the THING began. The DD thing. After that, I got a LOT of spankings for smoking and lying, all of which I deserved, and a couple of which could make the history books. Ha-Ha..

Actually, I’ve taken more swats for smoking, over the years, than for anything else, primarily because Sam has been absolutely determined to win this particular battle, and because I’ve lied about it so regularly. I lied by saying I had quit, when I hadn’t; and I lied when he asked me if I’d been smoking, and I denied it. So yeah, I calculate that I got spanked as often for lying as I did for smoking…maybe more. Talk about a no-win situation.

I have a small idea, now, what it must be like to be trying to give up drugs. I WANTED the damned cigarette more than ANYTHING, enough to lie, ( and even to steal.) Yeah, I actually SHOPLIFTED two packs, once, because Sam was with me, and I couldn’t get away to pay for them, so I just slipped them in my purse and strolled out of the store. One of the kids saw me do it, (Great role model, right?) I THEN encouraged my own innocent child to lie by suggesting that we not “mention” the “little accident at the market” to Daddy. The little rat squealed to Daddy anyway, and “Daddy” spanked the hell out of me when we got home. Sam threatened to make me go back to the store and ‘fess up, but instead, after turning my fanny beet red, he threw my ill-gotten loot in the trash, under the nasty coffee grounds, (on the mistaken impression that would deter me from digging them out and smoking them.)

A FEW OF THE MORE MEMORABLE, ANTI-SMOKING INCENTIVES I HAVE HAD, ( NOT NECESSARILY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.)

AFTER the kids came, and he began to get tougher, Sam still didn’t spank me for an occasional outdoor cigarette unless, unless I lied to him about doing it. I was SUPPOSED to be working on quitting, and he was doing his best to help me. But, of course, I ALWAYS lied, because I wanted to be seen as strong-willed, and competent. I could do it by myself…eventually!

I never smoked in the house, then, not only because it was a no-no, but because, for all of my deviousness, even I didn’t want the kids exposed to cigarette smoke. In the winter, when it was too cold to go outside, I had a habit of sneaking cigarettes in the garage. Unfortunately, Sam considers the garage part of the house, and my beloved husband has the nose of one of those bomb-sniffing police dogs. One night, when he came home from work and caught me in the garage, maybe ten seconds after I had tossed the evidence, he didn’t even say “Hello, how was your day?” before pushing me down over the still warm hood of the car, hauling my jeans and panties down and going to work on my chilly backside with this big, dried-out paint brush.

Sam always calls this particular spanking a “twofer”. (The paint brush was expensive, and I had used it, then let the paint dry on it, ruining it for future painting purposes.) It worked exceptionally, well, however, as a paddle, but it DID left paint chips in unlikely places.

Another time, I WAS smoking in the house, but since the KIDS were out at a friend’s house, I had made up my own rules, and decided it wouldn’t really count. I was wrong. I was in the upstairs bathroom tub, with six scented candles burning, soaking (and smoking), and of course, Sam chooses THAT day to come home early! When I heard him coming up the stairs, I panicked, and tried swishing the damned smoke out the bathroom window, but no luck. Sam walked into the bathroom, and just stood there for a moment, shaking his head. Then he pulled me up, dripping and soapy, bent me over the side of the tub and welted my wet rear with the plastic bath brush! SO hard and SO long (lecturing me between every swat, I should add,) that I had trouble catching my smoking- impaired breath.

Once he had decided it was a war, Sam was relentless, and all-seeing. Later that same year, we took two days off from the kids for our anniversary, and drove down the coast. A beautiful, cloudless, romantic day at the beach until Sam left me reading, to go for a little walk. (I rarely walk when I can help it, and certainly not for recreation.) He came back to find me, (once again) waving my arms like mad and trying to wave the smoke away after my last drag. We were in a more or less secluded spot, thank God, because he didn’t say ONE word, just rolled me over in the sand, sat on my lower legs, yanked down the bottoms of my bathing suit, and “blistered” (lovely expression) my rear end so hard with my paperback copy of “Great Expectations” that I was absolutely sure he was REALLY leaving blisters! It just went on and ON, and all the time I was howling, and he was going on about lung cancer and our orphaned children and lying to people you love. There WERE people further up the beach, and all I can hope is they thought we were joking around, because I yelled my head off, and couldn’t get my suit bottoms back up without yelping. I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat on an inflated pillow all the way home, and it STILL hurt.

Then, I discovered that if I went BEHIND the garage, where we kept the trash cans, the smoke from my pre-bedtime cigarette didn’t usually drift back into the yard. Brilliant, only I didn’t count on Sam’s famous nose. He caught me, in the act, and apparently decided to “deal with it” then and there, with a big, thick switch, rather than wait until we got back in the house. It was February, the absolute DEAD of winter, and we both nearly froze to death before he got “his point” made. Of course, I was a BIT more lightly dressed than Sam…the lower half of me, anyway. All I had on was a skimpy nightgown and a pair of fuzzy house-slippers…no underwear…NO protection. Ah, old memories are sweet, aren’t they? I remember that night especially well, because we had this neighbor in the back named Mrs. Eldon, who was a first class busybody. The next day, she shows up at the front door and wants to know if we were “having trouble with raccoons in the trash.” I said no, and she says, very wide-eyed, that she was out back and had heard these little “yippy” noises in back of our garage, and something being “maybe hit with a stick.” Thank God for thick shrubbery!

The last “anti-smoking spanking” that I recall was more like a “birching.” I was still occasionally sneaking a cigarette when I could get away with it, and this day, we had gone out picking apples, and while Sam was talking to the owner of the orchard where we had stopped, I darted behind a sort of tool shed, with this rusted old tractor. But Sam, always the alert detective, caught me. He collected this big fistful of small branches, drove down the road about a mile, and parked in the trees. Then, he pulled my jeans and underwear all the way down to my ankles, made me lean over an old wall, and wore the damned branches down to stumps on my rear end. I screamed bloody murder the whole time, and I don’t usually make a lot of noise. Of course, the branches used were from an apple tree, so I guess you could say that I was “appled,” more than birched.

That was, actually, one of the last times I ever smoked. I recommend this stop smoking plan, very highly, by the way. Call and make an appointment with my husband. We can use the money.

* * * *

Publishing my diary, particularly one this personal, wasn’t something I was especially comfortable with at first, and neither was Sam. Sam’s as good and forbearing a guy as I’ve ever known, but he’s a stickler for privacy, and more than a little self-conscious about the “lifestyle” we’ve sort of wandered into in search of something that worked for us. So, in looking at my own diary, or journal (I don’t usually call it a diary because I am somewhat remiss about keeping it up, and there are big lapses in it when my life is unusually boring.)

I had to do a little editing...a LOT of editing. Most of my more “important” spankings have been preserved in writing, primarily as a way of venting my emotions, or sometimes my temporary anger at Sam. (Unlike all those adoring ladies out there who claim to feel serene and loving after their hubbies or significant others have just blistered their tails, I have found myself, as often as not, planning my own husband’s murder or emasculation when he completes what he considers a well-deserved and reasonable spanking.)

These feelings always pass, because he’s usually (not ALWAYS!) right about the problem, who caused it, etc., but I’m still not quite as sweet-natured as the other “disciplined” wives out there and I occasionally think evil, vengeful thoughts as I sit on my cushion at dinner.

By the way, when I told Sam I was writing this, he said that I have to tell everyone that he’s really a nice guy who has never spanked anyone before me (So, what does this say about ME?) and that he never spanks the kids. Okay, he’s really a nice guy, and he never spanks the kids. (Happy, now, honey? ) Maybe he SHOULD start spanking the kids, or SOMEONE should. Our kiddies are the scourge of the neighborhood. (Just “kidding”, guys.) Also, SAM interjects, he usually hates spanking me, and feels like a bad guy sometimes. (Did you catch those words, “usually,” and “sometimes”?) I guess what this means is that he “usually” has a hell of a good time while he’s setting my ass on fire, and that “sometimes” he feels like John Wayne, walloping Maureen O’Hara. Read what you want into it.

Sam SAYS he believes that hitting women is absolutely wrong, (?) and says that his Mom and Dad would have taken a belt to his butt if he had ever hit a woman (?), because they didn’t raise him that way. ( I see a real opportunity for blackmail, here! ) The only people Sam has ever hit, besides his adorable, small, helpless wife, were a couple of jerks he punched in a bar fight in Hong Kong when he was in the Navy (and promptly got the shit beaten out of him, he points out.) My hubby, the hero.

I’ve explained to Sam that if he wants to add anything else, he can write his OWN book, so he is now wandering off to fix the garage door AGAIN (see journal entries) after what he promises will be just ONE last comment. I was hoping it would be something lovely about me, and LO, and behold!, it is! (See, below:)

Sam says to tell everyone that HE says I’m a terrific wife, but that I have a stubborn streak as wide as the garage door (Again, with the damned door! I SAID I was sorry!) Also, that I do not take direction well, and that he knows that I still smoke when he’s not around, because he can smell it in the garage, and that we’ll “talk” about that later, upstairs. (This is, of course, a veiled threat.) I think that all this talk about spanking has renewed his interest. It’s been several months (ten weeks, four days) since we last “talked about” anything upstairs. Sam’s been out of town a lot on business, and yes, I HAVE had one very small “smoking relapse” in the last month. A temporary reaction, I’m sure, to stress. Sam’s parents have been our houseguests for the last three weeks, while their new condo is being finished. It’s been peachy! In my opinion, with what I’ve gone through, he’s lucky I’ve only been smoking TOBACCO! But, then, you’d have to know Sam’s mother to understand.(See diary.)

All in all, our DD arrangement has worked well, and life, I will freely admit, has been noticeably smoother. Unlike some other ladies I’ve read about, though, (like Madonna) I don’t LIKE getting spanked, because Sam is pretty tough about it, and over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of painful and humiliating positions, devoutly wishing that I were somewhere else.

As I reread this before handing it over to April (with shaking hands,) it occurred to me that my life is probably intensely boring, pretty much like everyone else’s. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. You’ll have to decide. In any case, I wouldn’t wait for the movie. There have been absolutely NO offers.

I hope you enjoy the book, and get something useful from it...if nothing else, a few laughs. For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, my life tends to read funnier than I remember it. What can I say? It’s a quirk.

* * * * *

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