*|MC:SUBJECT|*

I have a theory that no matter how long you’ve known your spouse, being newlyweds (it’s been less than two years so we’re holding onto the distinction) brings a whole new chapter of discovery.

She: Fishes.
I: Talk to the fish and assure them they’ll be back with their family and to just hang on all while she’s trying to get the hook out, thus pretty much ruining her experience.

She: Hates my driving.
I: Think it’s fine; the one accident I had since I moved here was barely mentionable.

She: Thinks I can talk my way out of anything.
I: Try to. The above-mentioned car accident resulted in no exchange of insurance or calling the police. I saw an “I Heart Jesus” sticker on the car I had bumped into. I explained to the driver I was new in town, “a good Christian” and in need of a congregation. Instead of wanting my insurance info she gave me her church info. I may have lost points in Heaven but it’s better than gaining them on my driving record.

She: Is an amazing cook
I: Am an amazing table setter, eater and cleaner-upper.

She: Secretly lowers the thermostat.
I: Secretly raise it.
We: Both vehemently deny touching it.

I: Lose my phone, sunglasses and keys all the time.
She: Got me the Tile; a gizmo you attach to things you lose and it tells you through an App on your phone where they are.
I: Can’t find it. (The ironies abound when it’s your phone you lose)

Our most recent discovery:

She: Thinks I have a terrible memory.
I: Can’t keep up with her conversation style.

I’ll admit I’m not fun to fish with, I might be a slightly less better driver than she, I do try and talk my way into or out of many situations, I abuse the thermostat and I can’t cook. However, while I may not have a photographic memory, not getting lost in her thought process would take Lewis and Clark teaming up with a group of Navy Seals armed with GPS, multiple flashlights, maps and at least one phone-a-friend call.

This latest was a microcosm of how many of our conversations go:

Her: Ok so I get home on Monday, and the next show in Texas I’ll see Tonda and see her new house. Oh and we have to remember to take a pillow.
Me: Why do you need to take a pillow to Tonda’s?
Her: Why would I take a pillow from Tonda’s?
Me: You said you’re going to Tonda’s house and then said you need to get a pillow.
Her: A pillow for you for the bus when you come back with us from Kansas.
Me: That’s in two weeks.
Her: Yeah but the pillows on the bus suck and we need to get a wedding gift for Troy.
Me: We’re going to a wedding?
Her: No, but I’m playing Country Thunder.

At this point I was dizzy and decided to take a different tact.

Me: Did you ever read the comic cartoon “Family Circus,” with the Mom and Dad and the three kids?
Her: The one with the fat dumb kid in it?
Me: Billy, he was the distracted older sibling. This conversation reminds me of the ones where he would walk miles and miles in circles leaving his little footprints everywhere – around the trees, through the swing set, into and out of the dog house, up and down the slide, over the jungle gym, around multiple telephone poles - all just to go across the street.
Her: Do you remember when I’m coming home?
Me: Tuesday.
Her: No, Monday! How can you remember a cartoon from over forty years ago and you can’t remember the day I’M COMING HOME??!!!!
Me: It was a repetitive theme!! They ran it MORE THAN ONCE!!

If marriage is the bond between a person who never remembers anniversaries and another who never forgets them, then between us I think we’d be the couple who both remember, but who end up waiting for each other at different restaurants.

“I do remember,
And then
When I try to remember,
I forget.”
- Winnie The Pooh

Cartoons are so wise.