I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
~Rita Rudner
My ten-week-old grandson visited us, along with his parents and my son’s in-laws. We propped the baby up in a corner of the den’s sofa while I, in hush-hush tones, spoke to him as I squeezed his precious fingers. The little guy opened his mouth as though mimicking my expression — as if he too wanted to babble. My daughter-in-law raised her iPhone behind me and recorded our tête-à-tête. She vowed to send it to me later that evening.
After they had all departed, my husband settled into that same nook of our sofa and became engrossed in the March Madness of the Duke University and South Carolina game. Yes, That Game! I watched and occasionally uttered a lame comment like: “Looked like a foul to me!” or “He shot that from downtown!” I’ve acquired a bit of the clichéd, broadcaster go-to lingo after four decades of cheering on the Blue Devils.
“Want a Tab?” I asked my husband, a Tab aficionado to rival Austin Powers.
“Huh?”
“Tab?”
“Yeah.”
I fetched the familiar pink can. When I returned to my niche on the couch, I noticed my phone had beeped. Snuggling into the other corner of the couch across from my hubby, I shouted, “Yay! Jess has already sent me pictures!”
My spouse squinted at the TV set, absorbed. “Oh, looky here. You must see these with you and the baby!” I held up the phone. He didn’t look. His eyes focused on the debacle occurring a few yards away. I glanced at the screen and witnessed yet another turnover. “When Coach K gets mad, he resembles Duke’s mascot,” I noted. “Don’t cha think?”
My husband didn’t crack a smile.
I shuffled through the photos, grinning at our big boy of ten weeks. “Amazing! You and he have the same expression in this photo.” I extended the phone toward my better half. My husband didn’t alter his gaze. I heard another beep. Jess had uploaded the video conversation I’d had with my grandson. I perused it. I marveled at his alertness and my pleasant, engaged baby-whisperer voice. Then, lo and behold, I spied my back, where folds of flesh could be discerned in a rippled effect under my polyester shirt.
“Ugh!” I groaned as I pored over the unflattering angle. “Yikes! I look terrible — even with my back to the camera!”
My partner dutifully followed the sad procession back and forth of his losing team and seemed unaware that another breathing human occupied the room, sharing the same sofa.
Finally, I said, not in sotto voce, “Honey, I am so sorry that you have a fat, unattractive wife. Really, I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” he said.
I looked hard at him. He turned to look at me.
“What did you say?” I questioned.
“Me, too. Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” He looked sincere in being sorry, too sincere.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, too,” he stated.
“You’re sorry you have a fat, unattractive wife?”
“What?” he asked.
“You agreed with me that you have a fat, unattractive wife!”
“Oh! I’m sorry. Duke is losing.”
“Me, too,” I said.
Then he gazed at me. With bated breath, I expected him to lie. I expected him to add, “You’re not fat,” or something to that effect. But he said, “You know, I’m fat, too.”
At that point, a whistle blew on TV, and another whistle blew in my mind instantaneously. In that nanosecond, I determined three things about the near future: In the morning, Duke wasn’t going to be packing for the Sweet 16; I was going to begin a love affair — with salads; and there was going to be a travel ban on a certain someone who frequently travels to Costco to procure humongous, chocolate-chip cookies that this same trekker consumes in large quantities while sipping a one-calorie soda in a pink can. And his wife eats these basketball-sized cookies, too. In one shining moment, epiphanies occurred!
~Erika Hoffman
