This Really Big Crisis: As if under the influence of an evil spell, Wife got up from her soup and looked out the window, well beyond the safety of her very own backyard. Wife's backyard and her neighbor's backyard were separated by a fence that rose 50 feet above the ground. But Wife's window was 51 feet high, which meant that she was able to see over the fence, and to look down upon her neighbor's private satabun garden.

"Hay!" said Husband, trying to get Wife's attention.

"Hay is for horses," said Wife. She might have said just about anything, because her attention was almost totally on the satabun next door.

"Yo!" said Husband. "Yo" was a strange word to say, but he'd been saying it often lately because he was trying to invent the very first yo-yo. "Yo," repeated Husband. "Want to sit back down and finish your soup?"

This was a good question, but Wife couldn't answer it now. Why? Because she was holding her breath and turning an entirely different color.

"Uh oh," thought Husband, who was alarmed and upset. For one thing, Wife and he had promised to behave themselves. For another thing, as Wife held her breath and turned a different color, she reminded him of the spoiled baby prince who threw temper tantrums in the Village Market.

"Are we pouting, dear?" asked Husband. He thought he'd be able to tease Wife out of her curious mood, or whatever it was, and usually he could make Wife laugh. But now as Wife's color changed from "entirely different" to positively weird, he realized this was no laughing matter.

"Please, dear," implored Husband. "Let's have some chicken soup."

"You know what you can do with your chicken soup!" said Wife.

Of course Husband knew what he could do with his chicken soup. Eat it, right? But he also knew Wife was in serious trouble, and in need of a reminder. "In case you've forgotten," he said, "chicken is your favorite."

"Was my favorite," Wife said. "Now my favorite is satabun!" Wife batted her eyelashes up and down like tiny fans, the way ladies used to bat their eyelashes when they were intent on getting some serious attention, or whatever, from the gentlemen of their species.

"Satabun soup?" said Husband, "that's so funny I forgot to laugh." Actually, Husband didn't forget to laugh, he decided not to laugh. Laughing in his wife's face, especially when it was a positively weird color, would be rude. And there'd already been too much rudeness in their hovel.

"Of course satabun soup!" hissed Wife. "After satabun soup, I shall have satabun chips and satabun dips, then satabun fried and satabun dried, followed by satabun roasted and satabun toasted, topped off with sata—"

Husband began to suspect the worst. "You didn't go back on our promise, did you, dear?"

"Promise this!" exclaimed Wife. "Satabun boiled, satabun broiled, satabun on ice, satabun on rice!"

Now Husband more than merely suspected the worst, he knew the worst. The worst, alas, wasn't being spoiled or acting crazy. Wife wasn't bad, she was sick. Wife was ill in the worst way. Indeed, at this very moment, Wife was displaying early signs of Satabun Fever!