Marriage Moats-Who Are You Talking To?

Published: Mon, 12/05/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

(If you want to hear Lori read this story click)here

Yesterday I was sewing Christmas cards, and Benjamin was playing a game on the IPad. He was starting to rev up and I flung warnings across the room.

"Calm down, or no more Ipad, Ben." I am such a clever parent.

"NO!!" He got even more agitated.

"Benjamin...." I warned without looking up.

"YOU IDIOT!!" he shouted.

I could not let this infraction go unchecked, even if there were no witnesses. I must Maintain Authority. I ambled over to the couch with my I Mean Business frown on.

"You cannot talk to me like that. Hand it over."

He looked up at me with his transparent face, the one that cannot muster guile to save his skin.

"I was talking to the zombies," he explained.

Now if he were a savvy teenager, who knew how to skate under consequences like the winner of the Limbo Olympics, I would have stuck to my guns. But he is Benjamin, who tells the truth because he is so often confused by our slippery world of innuendos and sarcasm, and he is committed to telling it like it is.

"Ok," I conceded. I have no rule about insulting zombies.

Sometimes I act up when I am sitting with John, talking with John, and looking at John. But I am actually reacting to the zombies. He falls for the illusion that my barbed words are aimed at him, considering the small detail that he is the only other person in the room. But I have a habit of interacting with people who are not actually present at the time. Like when I was obsessing about my inability to sell adorable little girls' dresses at a craft sale before Christmas, or water in the Sahara for that matter. Or Girl Scout cookies to rich matrons wearing diamond earrings.

So when my kids and husband show up I snarl at them because there are no parched travelers on camels within earshot, or famished octogenarians with fifty dollar bills spilling out of their Christian Dior pocketbooks, much less people turning up their noses at ruffled dresses.

Maybe the trouble is at least in part due to my own lousy aim. I should learn not to point my forked tongue at innocent family members.

Photo by Andy Sullivan

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