The other night after dinner I found my wife slumped on the couch watching a movie on cable. This is very unusual, in that most nights after dinner my wife pressures me to take the dog for a long walk. Both the dog and I, she says, need to walk off dinner before our bellies start to drag on the ground.

I am not interested, and I'm pretty sure the dog isn't either. He (rightly) thinks I'm a grouch, and I (very, very rightly) think he smells like road kill, so we both could take or leave the other. And while the dog can't answer for himself, I feel pretty strongly that it's a personal choice as to whether you want to exercise or whether you're quite comfortable with a dragging belly.

Seeing an opportunity for both the dog and me to take a needed break, I plopped down on the couch next to her. Within a few minutes, I realized the movie was "Premonition," a spooky Sandra Bullock film we'd seen a while back. It took only a few minutes more to remember the plot: A suburban wife experiences some sort of time travel and can suddenly tell what's going to happen in the near future. In the upcoming week, she realizes, her husband is going to contemplate having an affair with a hot young blond co-worker. He'll change his mind at the last minute, of course, but then, get this, he'll get decapitated and barbecued in a fiery car crash.

The horrible car wreck wasn't the part that bothered me. No, I got really upset when the Sandra Bullock character (the heroine of the movie) figures out what's going to happen, has a chance to put an end to it, but then, because she's hurt by his (almost) betrayal, decides not to tell her husband what's going to happen, and LET'S IT HAPPEN.

I've had to sit through a lot of movies where the husband is secretly a cheater, or a scam artist, or even a murderer, basically the "bad guy," and I haven't complained. There's even a whole cable network, Lifetime, devoted to the idea that every husband out there is evil, with some just better at hiding it than others. But as we sat there on the couch, I felt a growing sense of aggravation.

"This is a little harsh, don't you think?" I said to my wife.

"What?" she answered, engrossed in the film.

"The poor guy," I said, motioning to the TV set, "only thinks, just thinks, mind you, about having an affair, with a stunning young woman, I might add, and he gets his head cut off?"

My wife turned to look at me.

"So? What's the problem?"

I gestured toward the screen.

"You think the appropriate punishment for contemplating an affair is ... decapitation?"

She shrugged. "He probably should have thought of the consequences before he even looked at another woman," she said.

"What if the wife were the one planning an affair?" I asked.

"Well, then she probably had a lousy husband!" she said. "Shh, I'm trying to watch this!"

A few minutes later, they had the scene where ol' Sandra Bullock has to attend her husband's funeral. Somebody upends the casket, and the poor schmuck's still-smoldering head falls out and rolls down the sidewalk. My wife turned to me slowly, smiled and drew her finger across her throat.

"Penny for your thoughts!" she said.

I stared at the TV for a few minutes, then spied the dog over in the corner, curled up in his bed and looking bored.

"Come on, Harry," I called out. "I'm taking you for a walk!"

Homemaking is a column about the people, projects and pride that make a house a home. Peter McKay, a Ben Avon resident, is a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate.