She asked me to tell her a story. She wanted something romantic. So I told her of a girl, and a boy, an evil ninja clan, a beautiful alien from Venus, an old leper, a cat lady who lived in a house that smelled of pigeon poop, and a lot of falling leaves. I don’t think the story was very good, but she seemed to like it. She told me later that she loved all my stories. She was biased. She has always been. But I love her for being so.
She asked me why everyone but the leper dies in the story. I told her I wanted something realistic. She said that nothing with an alien from Venus would ever be realistic. She got me again. She was always the smarter one. Well, no, I’m smarter. I just don’t like having to explain myself all the time.
“Why can’t the boy and the girl live?” she asked.
“Why do you have to ask so many questions?” I answered.
“But why?” she tried again.
“They just don’t.”
“You’re so boring! Do you know what my favorite story is?”
“No.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Do you want my honest answer or a nice to hear answer?”
“Your honest answer.”
“Of course I want to know.”
“Really?”
“Honestly, no. That was the nice to hear answer.”
“I hate you. Why not?”
“Ok, just hurry up and tell me.”
“It’s Little Women. Have you read that?”
“Yes, I think so, in a dream. I was in man hell reading it while this huge five hundred pound lady was plucking my leg hair with her nasty fingernails.”
“I really hate you now.”
She’ll hate me until she realizes I used all the shampoo – then she’ll hate me even more. I’ll run to the store to buy her some and get some flowers on the way back. That will take about fifteen minutes. The conversation earlier was probably two minutes. She’ll hate me from the end of the conversation to the time she sees the flowers. She’ll pretend she still hates me for about another one to two minutes. The whole exercise will be less than twenty minutes. I could have used the twenty minutes on the Ab-Flex and gotten as much out of it. Of course I know that’s not true. But sometimes it’s nice to think females waste your time.
