I know what you are thinking: Why would she do such a thing? Why
would a presumably loving wife jeopardize her long-standing
marriage with such a reckless act?
If we didn't argue, I wondered, could we even communicate? What
would be the rejoinder to one or the other's statement? Take, for
example, dinner. If I said, "I was thinking Chinese," she couldn't
say, "Chinese? I was thinking Italian. Or, hey, what about that
place in Cleveland Park we've been wanting to try? I mean, if you
want Chinese, I guess that's okay. But what do you think of sushi?"
She would have to say, "Chinese? Sounds good."
There is no possible way that a marriage could survive that kind of
harmony!
So why was she doing this?
I deliberated over her motives. Was she trying to give me a heart
attack to get the insurance money, like in one of those 1940s
movies? Perhaps she was laying one of those cunning wife traps that
husbands don't see until they're ensnared. Maybe she'd just gone
plumb loco.
Or maybe, just maybe, this was a cry for help. Maybe she was just
craving excitement.
I decided to throw caution to the wind and give her what she
wanted.
YOU KNOW THE OLD SAYING about being careful
what you wish for because you just might get it? Well, this wasn't
that. This was bliss.
This was the fountain of youth, the
garden of Eden, the $64 million
lottery - all rolled into one.
But, as with the nonexistence of the fountain of youth, the apple
in the garden, and the relatives in the lottery, there was a fly in
the no-argument ointment. Call it, for lack of a better word,
conscience.
I could take unfair advantage by saying and doing things with which
I know she would not normally agree and thus enjoy my sudden good
fortune to the hilt. Or I could be a decent human being.