I hate them all, my wife said.
Who? I asked.
What? she replied.
You know, I said.
No, she said. I dont know.
Who do you hate? I asked.
No one, she said.
But you just said, I said.
What? she asked.
That you hate them, I said. All.
My wife smiled.
Youre an idiot, she said, sweetly, sincerely.
No, Im not, I said.
Yes, you are, she said.
Any married man will tell you that this kind of conversation happens all the time.
Its part of the game.
And you cant win it.
OK, I said. You said you hate them all.
No, she said, with the voice she reserves for mental defectives ... and me.
No? I said.
No, she replied, firmly.
A few seconds passed as I braked for a light that had just flipped red.
I gave in.
Its what husbands do.
OK, I said. If you didnt say what I thought you said, what did you say?
She shook her head.
What I said was ... .
She paused, dragging out my embarrassment.
Yes, I said, depressing the accelerator, going with the green
That I hate, my wife said, gesturing to the right, the mall.
ONCE AGAIN, the ambiguous flexibility of the American tongue had beaten me senseless.
I felt deflated and defeated, as only an English major who prides himself on his ability to use the language as a tool -- if not a weapon -- can.
I mean, the whole exchange left me smashing my face -- figuratively speaking -- against the steering wheel, hoping that the air bag would deploy and render me senseless.
Id misunderstood.
Id dropped the ball.
Id fallen off a cliff.
All my skills, my abilities, my reason for living, essentially, had proven themselves, in a matter of moments, useless.
It reminded me of the last time I went to see a doctor, back when I kept having these recurring nightmares of dropping from great distances, powerless to stop my plummets. Usually, I woke up with a start before I finished the Wile E. Coyote plunge, but sometimes, I got smashed to smithereens.
So, the doctor, whom Id never seen before, asked. Why are you here?
I have these dreams, I said.
And ...
Well, they dont always end well, I said. I feel like Im falling and then ... splat!
Splat?
Uh-um.
He scribbled something on his clipboard.
Do you drink? he asked.
I thought Id make a joke.
Only to excess, I said, laughing..
Hmm.
More scratching on the clipboard.
This guy had no sense of humor.
I stopped smiling.
Beer, wine, spirits, he said.
The first one, I said.
How many a day?
Well, I said. I work nights.
No flash of a smile.
One, three, five? he asked.
And heres where the inescapable flexibility of the English language sucked me into its maelstrom.
No more than that, I said.
MY WIFE, whos a nurse and had been sitting at my side during the interrogation, castigated me all the way to the car.
You lied to him, she said.
How?
The number, she said. You did it on purpose.
Everyone lies to their doctor, I said. Its a well-proven fact.
She wasnt pleased.
Besides, I said, I didnt lie.
She stopped in the parking lot and stared at me.
The asphalt burned my sneakers.
What I told him, I said, was true.
You said, No more than that, my wife said, glaring at me, righteous indignity riding shotgun on her drive down Memory Lane.
No, I said.
What? she asked.
What I said was, No, more than that. Its all about the comma.
The comma? she asked, incredulous. The COMMA!
Seagulls scattered and the sun dipped behind a scudding cloud.
Yep, I said. Makes all the difference.
Some folks, especially the ones with their advanced degrees and their six-digit salaries, cant hear the pause that a comma causes.
Thats not my problem.
I went in there hoping to end my falling-off-a-cliff nightmares and all this guy wanted to talk about was a six-pack after work.
No wonder the health care system is run like no ones at the wheel.
In the end, I had to take a lot of blood tests and organ tests and a stress test, which involved a treadmill and another physician screaming at me, Youre normal! Why are you here?
Just following doctors orders, I said, not even minding if he cranked up the machine to the point where some must have felt they were racing up Everest. Mind if I smoke?
