Once upon a time, there lived a couple. A man and a woman of middle age (if the average lifespan is 120) who’d been together for close to two decades.
Now, truth be told they were generally delightful, sharing many things in common such as their love of dogs and their wiggle butts, foreign travel, and food.
But alas, they also had their differences.
Besides politics—she was a life-long bleeding-heart liberal and well, his heart, although reduced to mush by babies, sappy songs, and car commercials had never shed any blood (politically speaking) so besides that, driving together had begun to come between them.
In all fairness, the man’s job required him to traverse the city of freeways numerous times a day. Frustrated, he operated one notch below full-blown road rage as he shared the streets of LA with the other clueless, dumb-shits, commuters.
She, on the other hand, drove very little; and when she did, a book on tape, podcast or favorite music mix would delight her, making her commute through LA almost…bearable.
When they rode together to dinner, the movies or to see friends all the way in San Diego, great caruments (car arguments) would ensue. There was yelling, tears and bad language and it all started to impede on their compatibility.
The women, feeling more and more like a Crash Test Dummy, may have used the words aggressive and dangerous when describing his driving, He preferred the words assertive and tactical.
When he drove, cars seemed to jump out of nowhere, threatening the poor sucker in the passenger seat (the woman), at an alarming rate. He was oblivious. It was his super power. And as such, he started to find her constant criticism more than mildly annoying. She found herself blaming him for her high anxiety and lack of fingernails.
All of this to say: When they drove together he was an assbite and she was fast becoming a wingnut.
On one such occasion, just the other night, the situation reached critical mass.
Winding their way home through the canyon after a delicious steak dinner and wine with friends, the woman noticed that he was driving uncharacteristically slow. Like pace car slow. Like “rush hour” slow. Like Asian tourist slow.
Curious as to the cause of this anomaly and sensitive to the fact that her nagging caused him to get defensive which never ended well, she delicately broached the subject.
“You’re drunk aren’t you?” she asked. “Otherwise why would you be driving like an old lady?”
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t adjust his speed or move his head. He just stared straight ahead, following the curves in the road at a glacial pace.
He must not have heard her she surmised, so she asked again, only this time louder.
“Is there a problem? Are you drunk? Why are you driving so damn slow?”
Undaunted, he stared straight into the night.
“Hey!”
“I hear you,” he finally replied never taking his eyes off the road. “I’m ignoring you.”
“Why?” She barely got the word out before he continued.
“You’re not happy when I drive fast and you complain when I drive slow,” he replied in an uncharacteristically non-defensive voice. “Besides, I’m a drunk old lady so I can only do one thing at a time.”
His response caught her so off guard that a giant force built inside her until her body could no longer contain it and out it burst. Giant guffaws of laughter filled the car. It must have been contagious because his face broke into a Cheshire grin and slowly he started to laugh too. For ten minutes straight, they laughed and they laughed and before they knew it—they were home.
Where they continue to live happily ever after (unless they discuss Hillary, health care, or how to get anywhere fast on the 405.)
Carry on,
xox
