As a newly married man you might suppose ‘Let’s’ means ‘We,’ Not so, my man; so very not so. Now to be fair, my dear wife really does mean ‘Let’s you and I…’ But Sabrina feels she’s submitted her part in the chore by merely ordering it done; i.e. she’s more than contributed in this collegial undertaking by deciding it needed doing. Now your share of the task is ‘Make it so, Number One.”
Time elapsed in this ‘group effort?’ Her: 1.8 seconds. Me: hours upon hours of back-breaking toil followed by industrial quantities of Ben-Gay as well as a few visits for physical therapy.
Example: Herself wants me to hang a bird feeder. She hands me a small feeder maybe 2”x 8.” I spot this as a set-up. Think Lucy; football.
When we were first married she wanted ‘us’ [meaning ‘me’] to build a fence. Of wood. Okay. Twenty feet long. Okay. How high? Her hand gestures suggested the fence be somewhere between 18” and 17’ tall. What direction do you want the fence to run? About 2.7 degrees SSE of Ursa Major during Summer Soltice.
That seemed easy enough.
She sashays back to the house, her contribution to ‘our’ project fully completed.
I get to work, finish the job. My contribution to the project: 3 days and countless minor orthopedic injuries. She comes out to view the finished project and announces, “That’s not what I meant.” So I tear down the fence.
Having been through this before, I know there’s much more to this bird-feeder gambit than would catch the eye of the newly minted male spouse. [Pay attention, guys, you’re sitting on a goldmine in these next sentences!].
I am determined to skirt this ambush, so I hire a world renown surveying company. [I have to wait three months for them to show up but it’s worth it.] They arrive with electronic gadgets I can’t even spell and send me a ninety-page set of blueprints. I show them to her. “That’s just what I meant.”
I hire a team of four top exterior decorators. Using a geo-synchronous satellite with GPS capabilities, they set up a true vertical pole with the precise location of the bird-feeder [within 0.006 microns of perfect placement.]
Herself: “That’s just what I meant.”
I hang the bird feeder precisely on that self-same pole, according to plans. She walks out, her face freezes.
“That’s not what I meant.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
And then … there’s the Doppler Effect.
I had to look it up: Doppler Effect. As I understand it, this phenomenon is most clearly exhibited if you are standing by railroad tracks, the train coming towards you. At first it’s soft, then, louder, louder, then, as it passes you, softer, softer.
That’s how Sabrina speaks.
Example: I’m sitting in a room; she walks through the room on her way to the next room:
“Gahv, are you planning to go to the hardware store today? I need two bags of birdseed, one bag of unshelled peanuts, and …” Then she’s entered the next room. So, am I going to the hardware store today? You betcha! Do I know why? Not the first clue. Doppler Effect.
But, there’s a variation on this theme, and it involves a door.
We finish a conversation in the kitchen; I’m about to go downstairs. Following our talk, she buries herself in the computer. So, I figure: conversation over.
Not.
I’m halfway down the stairs after closing the door. I hear:
“Gahv…”
Just loud enough for me to hear, but not to comprehend. Back up the stairs trudges ol’ time-weary Gahv. “Ma’am?”
She starts to get up, heading for another room. “I need to go to Krogers today, and I’d hoped you could watch the dogs.”
I think that’s what she said. What I heard, however, was this: “I need to go to Krogers today, and I’d hoped you could watch the …”
Based on the above, you might rightly assume, me being an old duffer and all, that my hearing is going, and that a great Father’s Day gift for me would be an ear trumpet. Not so; I’ve got ears like a bat.
But, I have come up with a solution: it’s called ‘Optional Acoustics.’ Now, I hear what I want to hear. But what say we keep that a secret from Sabrina, eh?
Look for Lucky’s books locally and on-line: The Oath of Hippocrates; The Cotillian; A Journey Long Delayed; Campfire Tales; Sabonics; MORE CAMPFIRE TALES; GROWING UP IN STEPHENTOWN; ANIMAL ARCHIVES
SEE SABRINA’S WILDLIFE WEBSITE: FACEBOOK.COM/SWVA WILDLIFE
Wonderful read.