Conversation with My Wife (153)
After twenty years of marriage, there are no surprises… HA!
We were coming off a walk around the neighborhood and local park, and as we get to the front door Deb said something funny.
ME: Aw! Thank you, honey! Even after twenty years of marriage, you still make me laugh!
DEB: Or! (she goes into a twitchy upper body spasm with a strange rictus/grin on her face)
ME: (this is new behavior) What?
DEB: That’s you. When you laugh. When you do that silent laugh thing you do in bed or when we’re curled up on the couch. Your body shakes, but I can’t hear anything.
ME: No, I— okay, yes, but— wait, I have been doing that for years! So now you decide to make fun of this?
DEB: (look of intense sincerity on her face) I was not making fun of you, Jackster. (then proceeds to do her best Saint Vitus Dance impression)
Later we’re watching television.¹ Deb laughs out loud at something, looks over at me, and then does her best imitation of what happens when someone drops the plugged-in toaster into the kiddie pool in which she’s standing.
DEB: Sorry, honey. Didn’t want you to feel left out. (grins)
Then later we’re trading emails and I start one of mine with “Lol!” I then add a postscript:
ME: I guess that should have been <shaking silently with laughter> instead of <laughing out loud>, eh?²
DEB: SSWL :-)
So there you go! Twenty years of marriage, and we³ can STILL bring strange quirks to the relationship! How cool is that, eh?
¹Lucifer, on Netflix. For a show that basically says, “The Devil, he’s not such a bad guy, once you get to know him!”, my preacher’s kid wife and I sure do enjoy it.
²In my genealogical searches I’ve found that my Irish ancestors spent a couple generations in Canada before coming south to Chicago. So I feel I can throw in an occasional “eh?” without fear of cultural appropriation.
³Note that I am not assigning ownership to the strange quirk. For anyone keeping track. Probably Cook, because she’s good at that kind of thing. 😉
Copyright ©2020 by Jack Herlocker. All rights reserved, including the option to silently laugh at you so hard that you think you need to get a spoon under my tongue.
