Endearing Terms

An elderly lady was invited to an old friend’s home for dinner one evening. She was impressed by the way her lady friend preceded every request to her husband with endearing terms such as: Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, etc. The couple had been married almost 60 years and, clearly, they were still very much in love.
While the husband was in the living room, her lady friend leaned over to her hostess to say, “I think it’s wonderful that, after all these years, you still call your husband all those loving names.”
The hostess hung her head, “I have to tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘his name slipped my mind about 10 years ago, and I’m scared to death to ask the cranky old jerk what it is.”