When a couple has been together for as many years as we have, we begin to have our own language and behaviors just like twins do when they are young. Many times through the day, we find ourselves chuckling over the things we do so naturally that would look ridiculous to others. To us, these habits are amusing. For example, I put on jeans and a shirt and wear them the entire day. My outfit works for shopping, playing frisbee with the dogs, watching tv, doing housework, and so on. Ralph, on the other hand, has school clothes, agility clothes, dog walking clothes, cleaning clothes, shopping clothes, tv watching clothes, yaddah-yaddah. So when we get ready to do something, I always have to wait for him to put on the appropriate clothes. Now granted, to anyone outside our family, the clothes look basically the same, but he finds a humorous comfort in this habit. While he is changing, I have learned to just play a game that lasts a few minutes on my computer so I don't have to be annoyed waiting for him.Another thing is his Christmas duck made out of an old piece of very rough wood. I have all the Christmas decoration boxes labelled so I can find what I need each season. Well, while I was otherwise occupied one day many years ago, Ralph added "No Duck" to all the boxes except the one he put it in, which he labelled "DUCK!!!" .....so when he gets out the decorations each year, that duck is the very first thing he gets out and puts up on the mantle. Anyone who saw the boxes would probably wonder what the duck labels are all about.
The differences in our personalities and expectations is like day and night. He can hide something he is waiting for me to find, and if it takes months or even years for me to find it, he never gets impatient. It is very odd to discover something…a note or a little gift…several months after he hid it for me to discover. This has happened on several occasions. If I hide something I want him to discover, it eats away at me steadily until I finally have to tell him where it is. The most I have been able to keep my mouth shut is maybe a couple days…lol. Then I get impatient and ask him why he didn't look in his sock drawer or whatever. How he can maintain that much patience I have no idea? It amazes me. We made a pact as we aged to help finish each other's sentences since we kept forgetting words. It worked well, but now that we have aged even more, sometimes neither of us can remember a word we want to say, so our conversations take on a very unique and oddly funny banter back and forth while we discover what we are not finding the words to say. It is not unlike the game of Jeopardy in some cases or Name That Tune. "Did you remember to pick up the…you know…the thing I asked you to get?" I might ask. "What thing?" he inquires. "You know, the third thing on the list I gave you…" I respond. "I lost the list", he replies, "but can you remember what store I was supposed to buy it?" On and on we go until we finally hit the jackpot. It never ceases to be an adventurous conversational journey when we are in this mode of trying to remember something. It usually gets us both laughing.
We also have little jokes between us that others are not aware of. Through years of living together, we don't have to say anything but we are both thinking the same funny thoughts. Mixed up sentences are always fun like "he married his dead wife 30 years ago". I read that one today in a biography. I haven't shared it with Ralph yet, but this would keep one liners running through our heads for five minutes... and if we both actually wrote down our individual muses, our thoughts would be very similar. Then we always have the running jokes like when we are given fries at the drive up window after we asked for none, and one of us will always mumble, "They must have been all out of no fries." Yes, being married and in each other's daily lives for 41 years is an interesting experience. I have to say that humor is the reigning force that keeps it all working. Ralph is at the agility building in Berwick teaching lessons right now, and yes, he is wearing his agility outfit….and yes, it looks like everything else he wears. I still have on the jeans and shirt I put on this morning. Married life goes on….lol.
4 comments:
You two are awesome. Thanks Liz, I am still chuckling as I write this. :)
I remember when he put Mr. GREEN (using a GREEN pen) as his name on a yahtzee scote sheet and NEVER even pointed it out to us. You, Jeff and I noticed it weeks later when we went to play the game. I would have to show it IMMEDIATELY after I wrote it as I would be so full of my own humor!
Oppsies...this signed in as Nate's google name...that was me Denise Perkins-Fields;) NOT Nate...he wouldn't have noticed it since he wasn't even the apple of my eye yet.
I remember that, Denise. So you have witnessed his ability to do something funny and never bring it up until it is found a long time later. Still can't see how he has that level of patience.
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