The wife suddenly decided the husband needed to begin doing daily yoga with her.

Other than the physical activity, the weird positions, and the bizarre hours involved (she yogs at 5 a.m.), I wouldn’t mind the yoga so much. It doesn’t help that my rotundness prevents me from doing most of the positions correctly.

The instructor on our TV set says it’s OK to “approximate” and to place your body as close to the correct position as possible. This means I spend half the time panting on all fours like some old fat dog nobody cared enough about to put down.

The yoga instructor is this trim, 40-something brunette situated on a dock in some tropical paradise.

But before you can pitch a tent in your karate pants, she’s got you twisted on the floor in a self-inflicted half-nelson, quarter-chicken wing, string-of-painful-hyphenated-phrases.

Her voice is sweet and disarming—a little too disarming considering the things she expects me to do.

“We begin this yoga flow in the child pose,” she says. “Yoga flow?” I’m already weirded out and we haven’t even begun yet.

“Yoga flow” sounds like something the doctor has to give you penicillin for.

Gohs: “So, whatta ya think, doc?”

Doctor: “Have you had unprotected sex in any third world countries in the last six months?”

Gohs: “Well, there was that wife-swapping tour I took in Ebola country recently.”

Doctor: “It seems you have a pretty steady and severe case of yoga flow.”

Gohs: “Well, that explains the itching and the oily discharge … but what about the premonitions?”

Then the instructor tells us to sit on our feet. Yeah, maybe 50 pounds ago.

About all I can manage nowadays is to sit on my cankles and try to act natural.

I look like an asthmatic meerkat straining to see if the ice-cream truck is coming across Kapiti Plain.

Then we’re supposed to outstretch our hands and rest our forehead on the ground.

Huh? I couldn’t do that with a cop kneeling on my neck.

“Feel the gentle massage this pose gives your belly organs,” she coos seductively.

“Belly organs?” That’s not at all fucking creepy.

Between the screaming neck pain and the pressure on my brain pan I am unable to enjoy the massage my large and small intestines are said to be enjoying, but because all the blood has drained from my fat ass and flooded my fat frontal lobe, and I can now for the first time in my life understand algebra and hear every apprehensive thud of my bewildered heart in my highly pressurized ears.

So there we are—looking like a couple meth addicts on the show “COPS” right before I scream “I’m Jesus Christ!!!” and they sick the dogs on us—when the instructor tells us to stand with our butts in the air while our hands are still touching the floor.

This pose is known as “prison rape” and judging by the burning sensation in half of all my muscles, it’s nearly as painful.

The only pose I can actually do correctly is the “cobra flow,” which is basically lying on your stomach and pushing your upper body up off the floor while your lower half remains flat and motionless. (Some of you may remember this pose from your wedding night.)

I can’t do the superman pose (not sure what it’s really called) because I think I’m developing a hernia in my lower abdomen and I don’t want my guts to come spilling out like a visceral Play-Doh Fun Factory from the pressure.

So, I lie on my side in what I’ve dubbed the “drunken superman.”

I’ve customized this flow by adding a flailing leg feature. I can really feel the burn, and it makes the wife laugh, which in turn makes it more difficult for her to do yoga properly.

Which makes me happy.

I’m hoping I can make the experience so uncomfortable that she just gives the whole idea of me doing yoga up. But, if it’s anything like the last 20 years of our marriage, she’ll stick to it no matter how painful and embarrassing it becomes.

Some other yoga moves I have invented in the few months I’ve been subjected to the practice include:

• Throbbing pelvis
• Fatty fall down
• Dizzy spins
• Beached whale
• Bruised chin
• Sprained rectum (this actually had little to do with the yoga)
• Crybaby’s elbow
• Bent toe
• Oak splinter
• Shit Pants
• Festering finger (caused by oak splinter)
• Flailing child (similar to drunken superman but performed while on your back)
• Unconscious monkey (which is flailing child without the flailing)
• Storming Out Of Room (caused by Shit Pants)

Regardless of where you do yoga, the instructor will seem like the calmest, nicest person in the world.

Don’t be fooled.

While they may seem like they care, their enhanced interrogation techniques are second to none.

The more I think about it the more that tropical paradise in the background resembles Cuba.

Hell, she may be filming the yoga DVD from Guantanamo Bay.

Getting down on your knees should be the first clue.

There are only a couple of things adults do on all fours … and most of them are unpleasant: looking for car keys, searching for a lost contact, plugging the printer back in (BECAUSE APPARENTLY YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE IN THE HOUSE WHO IS CAPABLE OF DOING SO!!!), ducking bullets, hiding from Jehovah’s Witnesses, getting back up after falling, escaping a house fire, trying to clip a spastic Labrador’s toenails, giving a relentless two-year-old a hundredth horsey ride, fishing the remote out from under the razor sharp farm machinery under your recliner … well, you get the idea.

Why don’t I just quit?

I’ve tried to get out of it but there are only so many times you can fake diarrhea before the wife realizes you’re shitting your pants on purpose. (The number of times this works is exactly two.)

Don’t bother stretching it to a third because it’s only going to get you dirty looks, dirty pants and extra laundry duty.

I tried bargaining with the wife but I have very little to offer and veritably no leverage.

I said I’d cook her favorite dinner for her but she said I was already going to be doing that.

I tried paying her off but then she reminded me that she makes most of the money.

I put my hands on my hips and thrust my middle third into the air a few times all sexy-like but she just laughed and I think also threw up in her mouth a bit.

Desperate, I did a few of my patented ninja kicks (they’re not really registered with the patent office) and threatened to pop her one “Billy Jack” style if she didn’t back off.

Judging by how fast she came across the room, I don’t think she quite heard me right. And, while her pride wouldn’t allow her to show it, I think she was pretty scared.

But, I let her down easy by cowering and pretending to apologize.

After all, I’m secure enough in my manhood to let her think she won the argument. And, if I have to get up at 5 a.m. from now on to prove my point, I guess that’s just what a man has to do.

Can yoga save your marriage? No, it can’t. But it just might prevent a divorce.

“We start this yoga flow by doing exactly what the wife says, that is, if we have a sensible goddamn bone in our body.”