‘Snoogums’ Will Never Live Here

I’ll never call my husband “Sweetheart.” Never refer to him as “Dear.” Never use “Sweetie Pie” as a substitute for his first name.

Please don’t confuse my lack of affection for terms of endearment with a lack of affection for my husband. I actually happen to think rather highly of the gentleman. Maybe that’s why I want to preserve his dignity and spare him from having to answer to “my little Pop-Tart.”

I am very strict on this issue. It doesn’t matter if the good guy changes the strings on my guitar, or remembers to tape “Melrose Place” for me--I simply am not going to call him “Turtledove.” A pox, too, on all those other drippy declarations that are best confined to the inside of a Hallmark card.

There’s this problem I have, you see, with conventional words for the dearly beloved: I am convinced they would sound utterly silly coming from my mouth.

Now, it’s not as if I’ve stood in front of a mirror and practiced. (“Yes, Dear, I have seen this episode of ‘CHiPs.’ ” . . . “Honey, could you bring me a Chocodile?” . . . “Oh, Darling, the toilet bowl--it looks like a dream!”) But trust me. I have a sixth sense about these things, and I flat-out know that dialect rich in “Sweet Peas” and “Baby Dolls” wouldn’t work for me.

In fact, the way I figure, there are only three types of people who can carry off an occasional “Honeybunch” without sounding like a glassy-eyed Doris Day disciple: Doris Day, her own sunny self; Dick Van Dyke, and/or anybody else who resided in a black-and-white television sitcom, and country-music singers.

I’m tempted to add President Clinton to that list, because I can easily hear our down-home, sensitive-guy commander in chief tossing off a “Darling”--or, in Clinton’s case, “Darlin’ “--with the kind of guileless nonchalance such a word requires.

In short, to be comfortable in the milieu of “Yes, Dear,” you have to buy into the whole ding-dong KOST-FM world of love. You know--long walks on the beach, hand-holding at sunset, flickering candles in the wind, Whitney Houston power ballads, Martini & Rossi on the rocks, and slap-happy endings.

But it’s harder to walk through that door at night and offer a cheery, “Hi, Honey, I’m home,” when you know full well there’s a sink full of dishes and a pile of dirty laundry awaiting you. For my taste, a quick “How’s it going?” or “What’s the damage report from today?” packs a much more empathetic punch.

Oh, I’m certain some will accuse me of being a Blue Meanie on the subject of “Bunny-Wunny-isms,” but that’s OK. I have no shame. And here’s why. I am not alone.

I’m no “Sweetheart” or “Li’l Chia Pet” to my husband either.

In conversation, he prefers using my parent-given first name to, oh, something a tad more mushy--like “Oh, Captain of My Soul, Egg McMuffin of My Eye.”

We’d never actually charted that portion of our relationship, so I recently asked him why he, too, seemed reluctant to talk like some kissy-faced Smurf.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why would I? . . . Maybe we could try it for a week.”

I gotta admit I was intrigued. Imagine--a whole week of living like the other half on “Leave It to Beaver.” Dropping “Honeys” and “Dears” like so many “uhs” and “hey, yous.” Pretending to get dewy-eyed at the sound of “My Darling Scooter Pie.”

Then, sanity settled in and we realized we wouldn’t last one minute, much less a week, with that kind of language in the house. We’d go nuts. And probably laugh ourselves into a couple of hernias.

We’re just not cut out for terms of endearment. Maybe we should get a dog so we could talk baby talk to it.