Monday, May 11, 2009

Wrong Banana Leaf

Life in the jungles of South America can be brutal, brief and deadly. Survival means always being aware of your surroundings. You never know which banana leaf might be hiding a deadly Bushmaster or, God forbid, a Brazilian Wandering Spider.
    Marriage is a lot like that, too.
    A few weekends ago, for instance, I let my wife sit in the car while I ran into the house for something. This was a stupid move because my wife was already displaying the classic spousal signs of unrest. Bridget had,for instance, already referred to me as an "ass" twice that morning when, honestly, I had only deserved being called an "ass" once. Also, she had started to blame me for problems that were probably outside the traditional scope of my husbandly duties - like the swine flu pandemic and the resurgence of bedbugs in the hotels of America.
    So, I was clearly out of my freakin' mind when I ran back inside the house to get my sunglasses and left my wife and family in my car with nothing constructive to do. In the space of few minutes, my wife had rifled the contents of my car and had discovered in the glove box a - wait for it - deadly Brazilian Wandering Spider.
    Actually, it was a Taylor Swift CD.
    And when I came out, there was cold silence in the car until I buckled in. And my wife said the following nonchalantly:
    "So, whose Taylor Swift CD is in your glove compartment?"
    She pointed to a CD half hidden under auto handbooks and garage receipts.
    "Uh, who is Taylor Swift?" I responded.
    Wrong banana leaf.
    "Why would you have a Taylor Swift CD in your glove compartment if you don't even know that she's a multi-platinum recording artist who's currently enjoying great success with her song "Love Story" - which is very likely on that CD sitting in your glove box."
    This was actually a good question - and one for which I did not have an answer. I improvised.
    "Isn't it yours?"
    "I don't like Taylor Swift. Apparently you know someone who does.
    Improvisation clearly wasn't working, so I decided to try it again.
    "Where are you going with this?" I asked.
    "Nowhere. I just want to know whose CD that is."
    I had no idea whose Taylor Swift CD it was. I needed more time to think.
    "I forgot to go to the bathroom," I said and jumped out of the car. I ran inside and feigned going to the bathroom for twenty minutes. This gave me plenty of time to think but I was unfortunately distracted by a copy of "People Magazine" that had, from the look of it, been in the bathroom since before our house was built.
    I returned to the car, prepared for the worse but very, very up-to-date on what Suri Cruise was wearing.
    Bridget smiled at me and kissed me.
    "I have to apologize," she said. "It's not a Taylor Swift CD; it's a Shakira CD. I didn't pull it all the way out and look at it before."
    "Why is there a Shakira CD in my car?" I asked.
    "Oh," she giggled. "It's mine. I left it in here."
    Life in the South American rainforest. It's deadly. It's dangerous. It's very mercurial.
    
    
    
    

3 comments:

Steph said...

Oh, boy.

Anonymous said...

Well played GrimRichard -- Well played

Johnny said...

I feel your pain, my brother. As a man who has, very foolishly, allowed himself to become entangled with far more women than any one man has a right to, I know all to well the subtle omens that lead to these conflicts of the absurd. Still, despite the insight garnered by those experiences, I continue to fall prey to the constant perils & pitfalls laying in wait with every new relationship. I suppose this is the cross that each man must bear.
Your friend;
Chalkshark