Some day down the road, the two of them with their trusty dog, Kevin, will be sitting in their rockers on the porch, and they’ll have a good laugh.

But nobody is laughing in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s inner circle, these days.

The lethal virus continues its march up and down the state. The Midland floodwaters have receded, but the “who’s to blame” portion of the tragedy has not, and she could shoulder some of the blame. The Republican leader in the Senate just called her a liar. The burden of being a vice presidential prospect is beginning to take its political toll, as the relentless Republicans pound her for auditioning for that while Rome burns.

And then the First Gentleman made a clumsy entrance on the political stage, which has created one more unforced error for the governor.

In case you were in Ohio recently, getting a hair cut, and missed it, First Hubby Dr. Marc Mallory was Up North at the First Family condo and was eager to get the boat in the water for Memorial Day weekend.

When told by the dock putter-inner that meeting that deadline was a non-starter, the dentist wondered out loud if it would make any difference if he was the husband of the governor.

Yes it would came the reply as the doc’s dock request moved to the back of the line.

The businessman took to Facebook to share this little exchange for the whole world to see, and pretty much the whole world did.

That was the Friday before Memorial Day, and an unidentified staffer on the governor’s team, as she likes to call them, got on the horn after seeing a repost of the story on the site of a local Republican state senator. The staffer called the Senate leader’s office, allegedly told state Sen. Mike Shirkey the story was wrong, and pleaded with him to ask state Sen. Tom Barrett to hit the delete button on the missive.

Mr. Barrett got the message and did just that.

Story over?

Not by a long shot.

Friday turned into Saturday and then into Sunday and marched on into Memorial Day as the story got legs while the guv’s team was MIA.

Finally, on Tuesday, the governor surfaces and explains it was all a misunderstanding. She offers that her husband made an attempt at a “failed joke” when it appeared he was trying to use her to move to the head of the dock line.

“It was not funny, and I was not laughing,” she looked into the camera, hoping to cover her husbands tracks and turn the page to something else.

Hit the pause button for a second.

What you should know is that Dr. Mallory is no Dan Mulhern. The former First Husband serving with then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm was a political force. He had unlimited access to the governor and was not bashful about using it to help her shape public policy, often much to the chagrin of Ms. Granholm’s team.

Dr. Mallory could care less. Ask him how to fill a cavity, he’s in. Ask him what’s she’s up to? He doesn’t have a clue.

Sure, he wants to see her succeed, but he reveals it’s none of his business regarding what she does or how she does it.

“She doesn’t need my advice” he confessed in his first and only TV interview last December, with her in the executive residence.

The governor, however, knew instantly the political bats she would endure because of the optics of his “failed joke,” which some Republicans are not buying.

The excuse might have had more credibility, the governor’s critics contend, if she had trotted it out on Friday night or Saturday morning or whenever she discovered the miscue. That would have taken some of the sting out of the story. But the story went unchecked for over three days. One political observer said the issue was “bungled.”

That notwithstanding, there is one poignant question remaining: How much time, if any, did the First Hubby do in the dog house with Kevin?

Are we laughing, yet?