Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
Over the years, husbands and wives develop an amazing ability to not talk. This can be bad, this can be good. With practice, it evolves into a form of super communications, like the spooky ability to finish each other's sentences.
“Did you see . . . ”
“Yes. Amazing. How did he . . .”
“ I hope he gets . . .”
“Never happen.”
This spousal super communication skill can also develop into a way of shouting without breaking the rules against shouting. Suppose my super-industrious and much-to-be-praised wife wakes me non-verbally at 5:30 in the morning by loudly washing the supper dishes that I had promised to do the night before.
I could shout back, “I was just letting them soak.” But more likely I will respond non-verbally by stomping into the kitchen and banging my coffee cup against the coffee pot while she tries to read the morning paper. Messages conveyed. Argument over. No actual shouting to apologize for later.
Super communications has a seasonal component. Summer offers special opportunities to not talk about things that crawl. Some people like to watch crawly things. Others automatically stomp and swat. Sometimes a watcher marries a stomper. Lucky us. So much more to not talk about.
I usually take the first morning shower and I'm often joined by 12 large black ants. The first eight are waiting for me when I enter the shower. Although I am a watcher, I dutifully squish them on the shower wall on behalf of my wife the stomper. As I shower, three or four more black ants scramble out from behind the shampoo bottles. I brush them to the shower floor where they ant-paddle in the water for two seconds before circling the drain counter-clockwise and diving deep. We watchers know that ants can't swim.
After I have dispatched about 11.8 shower ants, no more will appear. Either a thirsty ant patrol contains only 12 members or that is the maximum number of casualties any ant patrol leader will allow before withdrawing. More research is needed.
Not likely to happen. Because at the first hint of any ant, my wife begins lining up ant traps along the bathroom walls. Without a word, the black traps appear and multiply into a growing horde that resembles a stranded string of hockey pucks.
How long will this silent ant war go on? One morning I expect to wake up to an uneasily quiet kitchen. As I pour my coffee, I'll find an ant trap floating in my cup. I've just been shouted at.