My Marriage Summarized in Five Conversations

Everything you need to know about my marriage as told in five conversations:

How Long Have We Been Married?

As we are flipping through channels on the TV, The Husband Dude says, “My favorite movie is on tonight.”

“The Wolfman?” I ask.

“No. The Boy Who Cried Werewolf.”

“You sure do have a lot of favorites. You say everything is your favorite.” I roll my eyes.

“Do you know what my all-time favorite movie is?” he asks.

“The Wolfman?”

“Not horror movie. My favorite all-time. The whole enchilada.”

I’m a little exasperated now. “How am I supposed to know that when you call everything your favorite?”

He looks at me like I’ve grown three heads. “You’re kidding me. You really don’t know? How long have we been married?”

“YOU CALL EVERYTHING YOUR FAVORITE! Point Break? Roadhouse?”

“Are you serious right now????”

“You LOVE Patrick Swayze. He’s your ‘favorite’, remember?” I snort.

“My favorite has awesome makeup in it.”

“Planet of the Apes!”

He rolls his eyes. “Let’s just sign the divorce papers now.”

“You LOVE Planet of the Apes. You saw them all back in the day. I’ve heard the whole ‘I went to the theater with M. and watched Ape for a Day and came home and drew apes all night’ story a million times!”

“My all-time favorite, which has everything in it that’s awesome, is…The Wizard of Oz.”

We blink at each other for a moment.

“Oh. Yes. I knew that,” I say.

“Obviously not.”

“Okay smart-ass…” I smirk. “What’s MY favorite movie of all time?”

Now he looks a little befuddled. “Ummm…Dead Again.”

“No. But that’s in my top 10.”

He’s looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Ummm…I could’ve sworn it was Dead Again.”

“I’ll give you a hint. I told you that you couldn’t call yourself an Italian until you’ve seen this movie and I made you watch it even though you didn’t want to. And then you loved it.”

“Oh yeah…Moonstruck!”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW???”

“Oh wait…is it a classic?”

“YES!”

“The Godfather?”

“YES! FOR CRAP’S SAKE, WHY ARE WE MARRIED?!?”

Twenty Cents

At the gas pump, The Dude hands me back my debit card and my discount card. “I can’t believe the price of gas. Only $1.57.”

“It’s actually $1.77,” I tell him. “I got a $0.20 discount.”

“That price is crazy.”

“Yeah. It’s a good discount. Twenty cents.”

Later driving home, he says, “I still can’t get over how much gas has gone down. $1.57!”

“It’s not that low,” I say, giving him side-eye. “I had a discount with my card. TWENTY CENTS.”

He stares blankly at me.

I repeat, “TWENTY CENT DISCOUNT.”

“You got a discount?”

“Yes, I’ve told you about 30 times I GOT A DISCOUNT. Twenty cents. Twenty-cent discount. TWENTY!”

He blinks. “Did you get a twenty-cent discount?”

“I’m going to hurt you.”

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

“I’m going to the store,” I tell The Dude.

He doesn’t look up from his phone. “Are you coming back?”

I pause for a few seconds. “I don’t know. I’ve got almost a full tank of gas and some cash. I’ll decide when I hit the road.”

Still not looking up from his phone. “Okay. Love you.”

Twenty minutes later, I walk back in. “Yeah, I decided to come back.”

Still not looking up from his phone, he says, “Cool…”

No Trouble Here

The Dude asks me, “Did you have much trouble getting the fan out of the garage?”

“Well,” I pause a little, “I said ‘motherfucker’ about twenty times.”

“So, no trouble then?”

Just In Case…

The week I was told my office would be closing and I made up my mind to give writing a try, we were lying in bed. The Dude whispers, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to work out. I know you’ve got this writing thing. You can do it. I really think you can.”

“Thanks,” I whisper back. “I appreciate you saying that.”

He wraps his arms around me, and we are silent for a while. Then I hear him whisper again.

 “It wouldn’t hurt to start playing the lottery, though…”