• Flattery will get you everywhere.

    You and your wife are sharing a moment of matrimonial intimacy in the bathroom. This is not the honeymoon kind of intimacy that people fantasize about. No, this is the mundane, day to day intimacy that is found in the real world. Your wife is in front of you, bent over the sink, brushing her teeth. Her face is visible only because of the mirror. It strikes you that this is what it really means to be married to someone. You share everything, even those mundane moments in front of the sink.

    She starts brushing her tongue and suddenly I laugh. Brushing your tongue is inherently funny, but like any joke you’ve heard over and over again, I’ve seen it too many times to chuckle. My mind made an odd connection and I just had to laugh at the thought.

    “What is it?”, she asks.
    “I don’t think you really want to know.”

    She resumes her brushing and I laugh again.

    “You know you’re going to have to tell me now.”
    “Well, you were brushing your tongue and I couldn’t help thinking your tongue looked like the panting of any eager puppy.”

    We both start to chuckle.

    “Get out of the bathroom if you are going to make me laugh. I want to finish and go to bed.”
    “O.K., I’ll stop.”

    She pauses and looks up at me in the mirror. I give her my best poker face. She starts brushing again, her face down so she can’t see my face.

    In a rapid cadence, I begin a puppy pant. “Heh.. heh…heh…”

    She has to stop brushing because her composure has broken like glass on a tile floor. We both giggle like a couple of school kids who’ve stayed up past their bed time.

    This is the couple that we are. No one gets to see this couple but us. It is what it means to me to be married – two people enjoying the otherwise routine moments in life.

    I love my wife. I love my life.

  • When a good car goes bad.

    What’s the deal with imports and modified exhaust systems. Take a car with a four cylinder engine. Now take off the muffler, and WAA LAA! – it still sounds like a four cylinder engine. Suddenly it’s cool for your car to sound like a party favor? My first car sounded like that – but only because it needed costly repairs. The last couple of mornings I have had the pleasure of following such a specimen to work. It’s a little Japanese import, not unlike my own – assuming you ignore the headlights, the tail lights, the brake lights, the license plate frame, the window tinting, the bumpers, the fenders, the soft purple glow, and the mock car phone antenna (didn’t people stop using the real thing about fifteen years ago?). Oh well, who am I to talk? If it makes them happy, what the hell. If they’ve entertained even one person (including myself), it was all worth while.

  • Exposed.

    I was thinking again about why I do this tonight. There’s nothing like being outed to make you think about your habits. NO, NOT THAT KIND OF “OUTING”, not that there is anything wrong with that. (Line borrowed from Jerry Seinfeld, without permission.) I was outed as a blogger. To my surprise, someone not of blood relation is actually reading this thing. I was surprised by my reaction; it was kind of thrilling. It was like finding my voice after years of silence. It was cool.

    Now, why am I doing this?

    What the hell, why not. If I’ve entertained one person (including myself), it was worth while.

    And by the way, if I didn’t say it before… thank you.