HONK

Today (Wednesday, September 13), as we headed east down 5&20 toward the PT-gym, my wife began discussing a girl that called her at the post-office and wanted them to hold her mail.
“The girl said her husband and she were no longer speaking. That she lived on the west-side of Rochester, about 20-25 miles away, and had no car, nor means of getting to the post-office. Her husband and she had shared a post-office box. You have to come in and fill out a form to get your mail forwarded, or do it online.”
“It’s interesting so many people are screwed up — yet we just go placidly along; like nothing ever fouls up.”
“Well,” I said, “I was very anxious to get married, but wasn’t about to make a wrong decision. Barbara Bolles was an awfully nice girl, yet I knew a marriage to her would never work. So I dove.”
“Hurt her feelings immensely — she had all kinds of big plans — but I knew things would just get worse. We were living on two different planes; and I knew they’d never meet. We were living a lie.”
“And I also know no matter how reprehensible and awful and terrible my famblee says I am, I’m nowhere near as bad as they say.”
“I agree,” my wife said. “In fact, I think you’re pretty wonderful.”
“They love me at the mighty Mezz too.” (HONK!!!)
“It’s the old religion-thing,” she said. “They feel if they don’t ‘save you,’ they’re guilty.”
“Yeah, but there’s also my ‘pyooter, my operating-system, my motorbike, my snowblower, my running-shoes, my breakfast-food (spurning 152 mph while glomming 14 hard-boiled eggs), my toothpaste, etc., etc. I have a hunch I’d still hear bellyaching about that even if I went to church and changed my politics.”
“That’s mainly Jack,” she said. “Anything you do is construed as a challenge, ever since you had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to dispute where you got off I-80. He seems to be insecure about that.”
“I didn’t want to marry a believer either,” she said. “You’re on different planes. They’re always after you. Conversation is impossible.”