Noah’s Wife’s Diary—Monday
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. – Karen the Carpenter
The Old Man came home with that look — the one that means he’s heard from The Voice again.
“Wife,” he says. He always calls me Wife — as if there might be another. As if he’d dare.
“I’m going to build a boat,” he says.
From my blank stare, he can tell I’m not pleased. I dare not ask what a boat is. The last time I asked about one of his stupid ideas, he announced he was going to build a “pool” in our backyard — one made of “cement” (rocks pressed together with some black tar).
With a perfectly good mist falling continuously, I saw no need for such an extravagant excavation of our lot. But there it sits: a muddy sinkhole vast enough to tempt hippos and rhinoceroses and Irène from lot thirteen, who has eyes for the Old Man to frolic about. Bonehead dumb to the nth degree.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re hearing voices again.”
“Yes, but not like last time.”
“Oh? With angels singing, maybe, and harps playing?”
He leans in, all mysterious. “It’s going to rain.”
“Who’s going to Irène’s? Not you, I hope.”
“It…” — he looks up in that way that lets me know he’s been out in the elements alone for too long — “the sky… will rain.”
I followed his gaze. Same blue-gray smudge we’ve had forever. “We don’t need a boat.”
“Now, why would you say that? Did you hear The Voice? No. No, you did not.”
“What we need is an affordable plumber. The downspout on the roof’s aqueduct is clogged again, and the overflow is dripping into the pantry.”
“Trust me. It’s about to get a lot worse.”
Holding firm—for that is the only way to deal with this old man—I say, “Mark my word. From now until men, hippos, rhinoceroses, and Irène no longer frolic in the Great Inland Sea formerly known as “Our Backyard,” the phrase, ‘We don’t need a boat,’ will be shared wisdom wives everywhere will say.”
“This will be more than rain,” he says. “The Voice is sending a flood.”
“Oh, well, in that case, by all means… go for it. Build a boat. Go for broke. Broke is a thing you do well. That shed you built last summer? To hold all your pool toys? Still filled with projects you broke and never fixed.”
“I can only get to one project at a time.”
“And yet you keep coming up with new projects. Also, if you think my having this conversation with you in any way suggests I care about your big boat project, then you are not hearing my voice.”
He glances down, staring at his muddy feet. He always does when he knows I’m right. “You watch. My boat will be bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. Big news forever. It’ll make me famous.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Old Man. I’ve seen some pretty large things. Remember that herd of elephants you convinced to drop and haul in lumber for your shed? Remember the pile of… You know… they left behind? Is your boat going to be bigger than that?”
“Wife, my boat will be so big we’ll have room for two elephants and their—”
“Stop before you say something that will anger The Voice.”
“B…O…A…T… Boat. Get used to hearing that word.”
“Break…Out…Another…Thousand… what? Pines? Oaks?”
“Cypress trees,“ he says. “Not that you really care.” With a sly smile meant to get my dander up, he said, “Irène thinks my boat is a great idea.”
“She would. She’s consorting with that Nephalem.”
In that moment I realized that the Old Man was looking at me the way he did before I had kids — and when he’s certain I’ll come around to his way of thinking. I hate that look.
“You don’t have to like it,” he says. “I just need you to get in the boat.”
If and when the day comes when his boat is ready to sail, we will discuss this further.
🚨 GET IN THE BOAT!! 🚨
Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37).
Translation: people will be busy doing dumb stuff—eating, drinking, marrying, arguing over pineapple pizza, binge-watching MSINBC “news,” doomscrolling on their phones—while ignoring the fact that the political, economic, and cultural clouds are looking suspiciously like a Biblical Weather Channel special called: “Mega-Disaster: Blood, Hail, and Other Freaky Stuff Coming Soon to Your Neighborhood.”
Jesus wasn’t joking when He said, “They knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39). Which is Bible-speak for: “Hey, genius, in Noah’s day they missed the giant boat parked out back of his house for a hundred years. What’ll be your excuse?”
If you’ve ever missed a flight, you know that sinking feeling when the gate agent shuts the door. Multiply that by forever and add boiling hot water up to your nostrils and that’s what coming for those who miss the Jesus boat.
So here’s my slightly-panicked, borderline-pompous, spiritually-desperate plea:
👉 GET IN THE BOAT!
👉 Do it now—before you scroll to another political rant about how the President is definitely the devil. (He’s not. There’s only one, and he doesn’t share.)
👉 Don’t be the guy—or gal, or “whatever”—standing outside yelling, “Wow, those are some seriously big meteors headed our way!”
GET. IN. THE. JESUS. BOAT.
Great story. I laughed out loud. “We don’t need a boat.” Spoken like every wife ever married to a visionary husband!
Great way to bring it home too. We are all doing life like we always have. Now is the time to be prepared.