Maternal Wisdom

"A lot of times, couples need their own paperwork." - Mom, explaining why there's two copies of this visit's itinerary in the bag of snacks she handed us as soon as we got out of the car.

Married Conversations: One Concern to the Tune of Another

(Frage sits in the recliner in the living room, watching HGTV.)
(UIM, just-showered and half-dressed, strides out with determination, picks up the letter-size notepad, grabs a pen, starts scribbling and mumbling.)

(After a minute of this...)

Frage: "Should I be worried that you're mumbling 'cut you down and destroy'?"

UIM: "It's 'one song to the tune of another'.  I realized you can sing the verses of Johnny Cash's 'God's Gonna Cut You Down' and Metallica's 'Seek and Destroy' to each other's tunes."

Frage: "Ah."

UIM: "But I understand you worry when your pants-less husband mumbles like that.  You concerns are valid."

Married Conversations: Saturday Wait (for a breakfast sandwich)

Frage: "I got you a different breakfast sandwich.  It's called The Cure."

UIM: "Is it supposed to be a hangover remedy."

Frage: "No, it's cured meats."

UIM: "I guess I'm just glad it doesn't look like Robert Smith."

Frage: "Every time I see it, I chuckle and think, 'Friday I'm in Love'."

UIM: "But today is Saturday."

Frage: "Yes."

UIM: "Are you all out of love?"

Frage: "No."

UIM: "Because that would be an Air Supply."

Married Conversations: Something Might Be Found

(After Frage comes in, and is throwing out her coffee cup.)

Frage:"So, yeah, I got myself coffee as a little treat."

UIM: "The pool was closed, so you walked the whole time?"

Frage: "No.  I swam, then walked."

UIM: " I really should just standardize it as 'How as your walk/swim?'"

Frage: "Or you could look for clues, like, my hair is wet."

UIM: "Now, listen, I am barely awake until noon, on my best days.  So, don't expect too much from me and -" (realizes) "you might not be let down and goddamnit I am quoting a Gin Blossoms song."

Poo Hearts Beating In Just One Mind.

(Context is lost, but....)

Frage: "It's all about the poo with you."

... devolving into Lyric Word Replacement - 'poo' for 'two' ...

Frage: "Just the Poo of Us."

UIM: "It Takes Poo to Make a Thing Go Right."

...

UIM: "And, of course, the Spice Girls singing, 'Poo Become One'."

Wrapped in white tissue as cold as the - ewwwww

During the 15-minute-or-so break that Frage and I took today to get sympathy about our respective jobs...

Frage: "I'm not a manager or a supervisor, but somehow the circus is mine."

UIM: "Other folks just keep assigning you monkeys."

Frage: "And I did not want responsibility for these poo-slingers."

Frank: "Now, I'm just imagining two monkeys in cowboy outfits facing off at high noon in a town, with holsters full of poo."

Reactions by other folks after I shared the above bit:

'Backer (my cousin): "I'm going to commission someone to draw that, and put it up on the wall above my home desk."

Shell (my brother):  "This town ain't big enough for the poo of us."

UIM: "I am now scared `Backer will make it an NFT with that title, and somehow I'll be responsible legally for whoever he sells it to."

Stringer (my other brother): "Non-flingable turds."

With nothing to consider, they forget my name?

(Frage making her coffee in the kitchen.)
(UIM in the living room, working on data correction and singing along with 'That's Not My Name'.)
UIM: "They call me quiet / but I'm a riot / Mary Jo, Lisa / It's all the same...")
(UIM looks up as Frage walks with her coffee back to her spare-room work area.)
Frage: "I have never called you quiet..."

Married Conversations: joke handling

UIM: "Sorry I stepped on your joke."

Frage: "You stepped on my joke, smeared it in poo, then gave it back to me."

Married Conversations: definitions and resistance

Frage: "Are those boots waterproof?"

UIM: "They're water resistant.  I wouldn't want to jump in a river wearing them."

Frage: "Well, there goes our plans for the afternoon."

The Six Words Frage Has Come to Dread

When I moved in with my then-girlfriend-now-spouse, one of the communication compromises we needed was a balance between my "I just thought of/read/saw this thing I must share right now" with her "Sudden noise/movement/conversation startles the hell out me".

Apparently, a 6-foot 215-lb man bounding into the room at top speed cackling about ... oh, let's say a posting on Fark.. is really really stressful to a 5'2" woman who has been living quietly with her cats for most of the previous decade.

Eventually, I understood that 'so startled she can't appreciate whatever I'm trying to say' was not a rejection of love.  (Had I learned that earlier in life, I'd have been a lot more pleasant to be around.)

And so, we developed the Six Words That Frage Dreads:

"I feel the need to share."  

Usually, the scene will be thus:

(Frage and UIM laying in bed.)

(Frage is playing game on her phone, half-listening to either an audiobook or whatever is on Hallmark Mystery Channel.)

(UIM is obsessively scrolling through YouTube or through the same six text web sites he always reads on his Kindle .)

(UIM laughs at something.)

(Pause.)

(UIM takes out his earbuds.)

(UIM takes a breath.)

(Frage holds her breath, hoping against hope.)

UIM: "When you reach a stopping point."

Frage: (weary) "yes?"

UIM: "I feel the need to share."

Married Conversation: it ain't easy shaking all night long.

(Driving back home after grocery shopping.)

(UIM turns on the car radio.)

Frage: "There will be no singing."

(First notes of 'You Shook Me All Night Long')

UIM: (Grinning) "Oh.  There will be singing."

(After the intro finishes)

Frage: "She was a fast machine."

UIM: (Kermit voice) "She was a fast machine."

Frage: "IN YOUR OWN VOICE!  NO MUPPETS!  NO CHIPMUNKS!  NO DAD VOICE!"

(UIM laughs to gasping until the guitar solo.)

Married Conversations: And I decided it was about time I made the call...

Frage: "There's a time and a place, and this was a good time."

UIM: "As long as you had a good time.  That's why I wrote my number on the women's room wall."

Frage: "That's weird. When I read it, it said, 'For agita, call..'"

Married Conversations: hazelnut philosophy

UIM: "Okay, I am confused.  Why is there a full jar next to a half-full jar?"
Frage: "Sometimes, you need the easy Nutella; sometimes, you make yourself work for it."

Conversations While Married

Frage: "I may have missed it while I was ranting."

UIM: (fake-innocent) "But you never rant."

Frage: "Yes, yes."

UIM: (fake-innocent) "My wife is sweet and demure and obedient, and never has an unkind word to say about anyone."

Frage: "You really ought start wearing a cup if you insist on talking $#!+ like this."

UIM: (too busy cackling to respond.)

Frage: "I may only have one good knee left, but I'm pretty sure I can knee you with it."

UIM: (still cackling)

Frage: "Obedient, my @$$..."

Conversations While Married

(Frage is a Shark Week enthusiast.)

(Frage also had to have a quiet day on Sunday because of a migraine.)

UIM: "Still watching Shark Week recordings?"

Frage: "Well, yeah, I am catching up from Migraine Sunday."

UIM: "Least popular holiday on the calendar."

(Pause)

UIM: "I don’t recall the vestment colors, but instead of flagellating your back, you have to smack yourself in the face."

Frage: "Wait, with a fish?"

UIM: "No, Fish-Slapping Dance is a Monty Python gag.  So that would be Church of England."

Some Say Waffles, They are a Razor....

Last Saturday, Frage and I were eating breakfast in an hourly-rental car before grocery shopping.

Frage misheard the word 'love' as 'waffles'.

(My fault for talking while eating.)

So of course, the Lyric Word Replacement gag came out of mothballs.

In this case, replace the word 'love' in a lyric with 'waffles'.

As examples: The Beatles are now singing "Can't Buy Me Waffles"; and Tina Turner is now asking "What's Waffles Got to Do with It?"

(Yes, it blows the scansion to hell, but I decided to run with it anyway)

So, the top 11 that I thought up today....

11."Crazy in Waffles" - Beyonce

10."Sunshine of Your Waffles" - Cream

9. "You Give Waffles a Bad Name" - Bon Jovi

8. "And in the end, the waffles you take/ Are equal to the waffles you make." - The Beatles, "The End"

7. "Shake Your Waffles" - Debbie Gibson

6. "Making Waffles Out of Nothing at All" - Air Supply

5. "You pull the trigger on my/ Waffle Gun." - Kiss

4. "The Greatest Waffle of All" - Whitney Houston

3. "How Deep is Your Waffle" - Bee Gees

2. "Tainted Waffles" originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964, covered in the 1981 by Soft Cell.

1. "Some people call me the Space Cowboy./ Some call me the Gangster of Waffles." - Steve Miller, "The Joker".

Married Conversations: I need a little room to operate, here.

Frage: "Have fun.  Make good choices.  Don't cry in meetings."

UIM: "Why do you want to limit my options?"

Married Conversations

UIM: "I have to call in to an all-hands that they declared last week. I hope it's more 'here's how we're dealing with COVID' and not 'we're selling you for medical experiments'."

Frage: "Could be both."

UIM: "You're right. Those aren't mutually exclusive."

Married Conversations: pillaging just like everybody else does.

Frage: "Somehow I keep startling this one co-worker.  I think they are going to want me to wear a bell."

UIM: "Well, you are descended from the rare Nordic Ninjas.  The small strain of introverted Vikings - they were okay with pillaging and plundering, but they didn't want to make a lot of noise about it, and they needed some quiet time to recharge afterward."

(Pause.)

(UIM snickers.)

Frage: (resigned to it) "Okay, what of your own jokes are you laughing at now."

UIM: "Just imagining a panning camera shot down the longboat, all the other Vikings are singing and drinking as they return home with booty, and there's just this one morose Viking in the middle.  Soundtrack is playing "How Soon is Now" by the Smiths."

Conversations while Married

(Walking home after running errands with an hourly-rental van.)

Frage: "Look at that one guy, no headlights on at 9 at night!"

UIM: "I refer you back to our earlier conversation: there's a$$#0le drivers everywhere; no sense getting offended by them."

Frage: "Look: I point out dogs when I see them; I point out a$$#0les when I see them.  This is who I am."

UIM: "As long as you don't point out dog's a$$#0les, I guess I can -"

Frage: (shocked by what she thought she heard) "What about putting on tassels?"

(UIM starts cackling and gasping for air - stops and cackles very loudly, slapping his knee, for most of a minute.)

(UIM looks up at Frage, solemnly staring at him, and he cackles some more.)

UIM: "No, I said - As long as you don't point out dog's a$$#0les -"

(Frage starts cackling, as they start walking again.)

(A few minutes later, Frage and UIM pass a woman carrying a tiny dog.)

Frage: (smiling at woman) "He's so tiny and cute."

(A moment passes.)

UIM: (leaning in to Frage) "Now, please do not point out the dog's a$$#ole."

(Frage surprise laughs, then regards UIM worriedly.)

Frage: "Go on, say 'a$$#0le' a little louder. People will -"

UIM: (louder) 'A$$#0le A Little Louder."

Frage: "Seriously, in public?  People get offended by that.  This time it was an innocent woman carrying a chihuahua, but what if a gang member thought you were -"

UIM: (cop voice) "Against the wall, please, I need to search you for chihuahuas."

Frage: "What?"

UIM: "Hey, you're the one who said gang members would be carrying chihuahuas..."

Frage: "No!"

UIM: (cop voice) "We believe there's gang involvement smuggling unlicensed chihuahuas from Indiana, where chihuahua ownership is less regulated."