Once, my brother was driving with his wife to Las Vegas. She made the comment that they never talk while they drive they just sit and stare out the window. His response was that's what everyone does.
Still he took note.
The next time they were driving to Vegas (apparently this brother has a gambling/drinking/stripper problem...though there is also a Temple in Vegas so maybe they were going there) he had thought ahead. He had taken a week and prepared, on his phone, a list of interesting topics to discuss on the drive.
So, just at the moment when the day to day conversation had piddled out he asked, "What are your thoughts about the rights of a polygamist to marry multiple times as it relates to the rights of homosexual marriage?*"
Taken aback but intrigued by the topic they engaged in a discussion. When that had run it course he hit her with, "Don't you think the decision have mortgage insurance last the life of the loan, as opposed to it's current 80% drop off, was egregious?!*"
She, noting his effort, joined in and they continued to discourse at 85 miles an hour. The time flew by and he told me that they really did connect and really got into some big topics that did impact their lives. The sun was setting and they were still laughing and speeding and talking and liking and then, when the topic of the voting rights of inmates came to an end, she noticed him flick out his phone, down by his leg, scroll down for a moment and then offer up, "Didn't you think Amanda totally redeemed herself in the reunion special of Project Runway?"
"Do you have notes?!" She asked.
"What?!"
"Are you getting conversation topics from your phone?!"
"Yes, but I was the one who made them?!"
"Is it so hard to talk to me off the cuff that you had to get a crib sheet?!!"
"No, well, yes, but they took me a week and..."
"IT TOOK YOU A WEEK TO THINK OF SOMETHING TO SAY TO ME?!! AM I HARD TO TALK TO? "
"No! You just said we just stare out the window and so I came up with an agenda!"
"Well now I have an agenda! To shove that phone up your scrawny Zzyzx hole!"
******
He thought he nailed it, and then he got nailed. They sat in silence for the rest of the trip, even though his phone pulsed with engaging suggestions. And I know what you are going to say, I'm actually thinking the same thing right now, he should have just laid it out from the begininning, "So, I know how you think we don't talk on these long trips so I have spent the week coming up with interesting topics if we find we need it."
Then she hasn't been duped. She's not the one on the outside of a scheme, she's part of the scheme. I don't know a lot about women, but I know they love a good scheme.
The best part of this story was when he was telling me about the conversation they had before he got caught. He really did remember what she said and how the whole thing felt nice and interesting and thoughtful and he learned things about his wife of over a decade that he hadn't known. And so he didn't tell this story the way I told it, his was borring and intimate and shared the blame between the two of them, he also never told me she said she'd shove the phone anywhere. But I have to write a blog and I can't just tell stories about how much one of my brothers thinks his wife is still interesting and funny and sees things such a particular way that it still baffles him that he got to marry her. NO ONE CARES! They want to hear a good phone shoving story and that, gental readers, is what you got.
*Not anywhere near the actual questions
