Conversation with My Wife (24)
Go ahead and eavesdrop, NSA, we’re just one Navajo windtalker short of an unbreakable code
Normal weekday evening; we’re home from our jobs. I’m working on supper. Deb has been making lunches for tomorrow, looking through mail, preparing various things. No conversation to speak of, until:
DEB: “Did you…?”
ME: “Nope.”
DEB: “Small?”
ME: “Please. Did you…?”
DEB: “Yup. Almost?”
ME: “Maybe five.”
DEB: “Need…?”
ME: “Nope, good.”
That’s how the transcript would read, anyway. But what actually got communicated was:
DEB: “Did you get dinner plates yet, honey?”
ME: “Not yet.”
DEB: “Small plates or large?”
ME: “Small will be fine. Did you already get forks and stuff?”
DEB: “I did. Is everything almost ready?”
ME: “Ready in five minutes or so, if you want to get something else done.”
DEB: “Need me to help with anything else, honey?”
ME: “Nope, we’re good, thanks honey!”
Any couple that has been together any long period goes through this same sort of conversation on a regular basis. It’s not telepathy, it’s just having a routine and knowing each other and how our conversations normally go. It’s what couples do. (Well, it’s what we do. I’m willing to bet we have lots of company, even from people who have been together less than we have.) And it doesn’t even touch on the shorthand vocabulary that families develop, eh, Gail Boenning?
