This is when I finally realized nothing I did would ever be enough. I came home from another 10.5 hour shift at a job I hated, half dead on my feet. We had a little metal corner shelf behind the front door I put hats and dog treats and keys on. I also had a hunting knife hanging there by a black leather thong. It was semi dark that evening so I couldn't see too well, but it looked like that thong was broken. When I went to grab it, it moved. 

Turns out there was a large snake crawling down between the shelf and the wall, and its tail was curled over the top edge of the shelf. Damn. A snake in the house. Its tail was blunt, and in the dim light looked like a timber rattlesnake I'd seen once. So, if this snake gets loose, someone will get bitten. There's my little dog behind me, my wife coming down the hall towards me one way, and my daughter and her friend coming towards me the other way. I can't kill the snake because its head is behind the shelf.

Nothing else to do but grab its tail and pull with one hand while keeping my other hand around the snake's body so maybe I can catch its head before it bites me. It turned out to be a non-poisonous King Snake thank God, but I didn't know that when I caught it. So while the kids are screaming in terror I took it outside to set it free, thinking damn, I did something pretty cool here and saved my family from a snake bite, or us having to leave the house. My wife is going to appreciate what I did!

Instead, when I come back in the house, she says: "I don't believe you really did something like that....was that a rubber snake, or were you just lying about the whole thing?" Un-fucking-believeable. With no hesitation and with my bare hands I caught a 4-foot-long snake that I thought was a rattlesnake, and carried it outside, to protect you.....and it's still not enough! I guarantee I'm the only man who ever did or ever will do something like that for her, but none of that mattered. Nothing would ever be enough. I could have caught and killed a rabid wolf with my bare hands and it wouldn't have been enough. She still would have found some way to deny me respect and demean me.

You cannot please a childish, bitter, hateful sucking black hole of negativity; it's impossible. AWALT. GYOW!