I am married, did you know that?

I know. Sometimes it even surprises me. He (The husband. The Married) shows up all unannounced and is skulking around in the refrigerator, and I turn around and think, Wow! There’s this dude in here, all up in my refrigerator! How did that happen?

I would also like to make clear: “All up in my refrigerator” is not code for something. In case you were wondering. We DO have codes for things, like, “Honey, you are the BEST.” This is code for, “I’m going to write about our relationship again today. Please forgive me.”

Anyhow.

Recently, my beloved and I went out on a date. Like, a real one. With a restaurant and cloth napkins and no complaining about the green stuff in the sauce. I stared at him from across the table as he sipped his water. He is tall. Blonde. Blue eyes. He is a cutie. And right at that moment, as I stared into those sweet, blue eyes, I batted my lashes and realized something rather important:

I had absolutely nothing to say to the man.

It had happened. We have been married for all of eight long, grueling years, and now? We had used up all our conversation.

Don’t worry. We made it through. We faltered through some banter about the Royals. No, not the ones in Great Britain. The baseball team. Hubs happily informed me about all the trades and pine tar, and I gave my brain a moment to take a full on vacation, knowing that if I nodded here or there, hubs would be all, “This is conversation! And it includes baseball stats! This woman completes me!”

All is not lost, ya’ll.

Because, as the date continued, and we listened to some rather amazing music – Phil Keaggy; have you heard of him? He’s awesome.  I sat next to Tall Blonde, and put my head on his shoulder and thought,
There is no one I would like to tune out to baseball statistics with than this man.

 

As the evening was drawing to a close, Hubs and I were heading home. A song came on the radio, and I hummed along.  And then what followed was what I like to refer to as:

The Ninth Inning Grand Slam of Talking:

Me: I love this song! Is it Cat Stevens, or James Taylor?

Him: No. No… It’s that guy that wrote that ship song.

Me: The Doors? Crystal Ship? This isn’t even in the same genre!

Him: No.. NO! The ELLA Fitzgerald one.

Me: Wait, What? Ella who?

Him: (slowly) ELLA. FITZGERALD.

Me:  (Sitting up. We are at critical mass here because I have found Something To Correct Him About.) Dude. Ella Fitzgerald is a jazz singer.

Him: …

Me: You know, like that Wonderful World Guy

Him: …

Me: YOU KNOW! Like that guy? The great Sassmo? Something Armstrong.

Him: Lance Armstrong?

Me: Yes! Maybe. No. I don’t know.

Him: Livestrong.

Me: What? Me?
Him: No. That’s Lance.

Me: (Looking around the car as if Lance was with us). NO. He sang that song, that one song. YOU KNOW. THE ONE AT OUR WEDDING?

Him: (Fearful. He is in scary territory. If he admits to not remembering this song, our marriage is a total fraud.) Right. That song. It’s a good one.

Me: Louis! LOUIS! He sang, “What a Wonderful World!” We DANCED TO IT AT OUR WEDDING! (Volume helps make me right.)

Him: Yes. Yes. We did.

Me: I am going to ignore the fact that you have no recollection of this song because we need to go back to the earlier part where you are also wrong. WRONG-O, buddy. The jazz singer lady. It’s Ella. She sang… she sang jazz stuff. A lot of famous stuff. And I don’t remember any of it.

Him: (Reaching for radio. Perhaps baseball on somewhere.)

Me: BUT wait. WAIT just a minute, buster. It’s not her. The one that wrote about the ship. About that poor ship that drowned.

Him: Gordon Lighting! (He is ecstatic! He is right! Finally!)

Me: You are not right.

Him: Ok, well Lightening something…

Me: McQueen?

Him: LIGHTFOOT. THE SHIP OF THE ELLA FITZGERALD! GOT IT!

Me: (Going for diversion). So, what did Cat Stevens sing, then?

Him: He’s a Christian.

Me: NO. He’s a Muslim now. You are WRONG AGAIN.  But he sang that song about the cats.

Him: In the cradle!

Me: Well, that’s just sad. To sing a song about cats and then not being able to keep your name, “Cat.”  He changed his name, you know. After he converted.

Him: (Still rather hoping we could just talk about baseball.)

Me: If he coulda kept it, it woulda been purrfect. (Punching him in the arm because I am funny, but he didn’t laugh. Punching him informs him to laugh. That’s how we operate.)

Him: Ouch. You just call out my name.

Me: Huh?

Him: James Taylor. He wrote some stuff. You just call out my name.

Me: Honey?

Him: And I’ll come running! Wherever you are…

Me: Oh. You’re singing. You’re singing the song now.

Him: Yep. And he sang that Mockingjay song.

Me: Mockingbird.

Him: That too.

Me: Well, now you’re just trying to be funny.

Him: I’m not trying. It comes natural.

Me: Ella Fitzgerald wasn’t even born when that ship went down.

Him: Well. It’s something like that. Ella FitzSimmons?

Me: No.

Him:  Elmer Fitzmerald?

Me: …

Him: Ugh. This is really gonna bug me.

Me: …

Him: The Ship of the Elvis FitzPresley?

Me:

THAT’S IT!

 

Fin.