Everything is GO!

The Wife, nicely: “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Me, insane in the membrane: “ARE YOU NUTS!?!?!? IT’S LIKE A BAJILLION FREAKIN’ DEGREES OUTSIDE!?!?!? ARE YOU TRYING TO HURT ME!?!?!? BECAUSE I’M HURTIN’, BABY!!!”

The Wife, surprisingly still quite positive and smiley: “How about a cup of iced coffee?”

Me, dripping with sweat and full of venom: “Sure. That would be swell… Waitaminit. If I have a cup of ICED coffee now, the caffeine will keep me up ALL NIGHT LONG!!! WHADDYA THINKIN’!?!?!? DO YOU HAVE IT IN FOR ME!?!?!? HAVE I MADE YOUR LIFE SO DIFFICULT THAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO ME IN BY TAKING AWAY MY SWEET, SWEET SLEEP!?!?!? I WON’T STAND FOR IT!!! I’M ON TO YOU!!! AWAY FROM ME WOMAN!!! AWAY!!!”

The Wife, sweet as a peach: “I can make you a decaffeinated iced coffee. Would you like that? I could even put a little chocolate in it.”

Me, the light bulb going on brighter than ever before: “Chocolate? THAT’S IT!!! WE’RE GOING TO BE RICH!!! I’VE GOT THE BEST IDEA EVER!!!”

The Wife, enthusiastically: “Tell me!”

Me, jumping to my feet and punctuating each bit of brilliance with impressive arm and hand movements: “Ya know how there’s Hot Chocolate, right? Well, when it’s super hot outside no fool in their right mind would want Hot Chocolate, right? Are ya with me? Okay, hold on to your mind because here it comes: ICED CHOCOLATE!!! This is going to be HUGE! Huge I say! We can market it as an Iced Coffee alternative! And the kids! The kids’ll dig it! I just know they will. SCHOOLS!!! We’ll get our ICED CHOCOLATE in schools! Schools fulla kids!”

The Wife, looking at me with a concerned look on her face: “…”

Me, confused: “What? What!? WHAT!?!?!? THIS IS IT!!! THIS IS OUR DEFINING MOMENT!!! THIS IS WHY WE WERE PUT ON THIS EARTH!!! THIS IS OUR GOLDEN TICKET!!! THIS IS GOING TO GET US OUT OF THIS NOWHERE TOWN AND KICK START OUR LIVES INTO OVERDRIVE!!! WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!?!?!? YOU’VE GOT THAT LOOK!!! THAT’S THE POKING HOLES LOOK!!! YOU’RE GOING TO START POKING HOLES IN OUR WONDERFUL DREAM!!! DON’T DO IT!!! I’M BEGGING YOU!!! THIS IS THE BEST IDEA EVER!!! WE’RE WINNING!!! WE’RE WINNING!!!”

The Wife, speaking quietly and calmly with brow furrowed, “How exactly would we make this drink?”

Me, faith renewed and pacing around the room feverishly: “Let’s see, if iced coffee is coffee + ice + milk, then Iced Chocolate would have ice + milk + chocolate. I like how this is sounding. I do, I do, I do. Yes, ice + milk + chocolate. Very, very good. We heat the milk and add the chocolate and then cool the whole thing off with ice. Huh. I guess we don’t really need to heat the milk if we are just going to cool it off again, do we? I suppose we could just add the chocolate to the already cold milk. Be kind of silly to call it Iced Chocolate if there’s no ice in it. I guess the best description would also be the most simple. We can just call it CHOCOLATE MIL…“

The Wife: “Why are you singing Aimee Mann into the refrigerator?”

Me: “I’m not singing Aimee Mann into the refridgerator. I’m singing Three Dog Night into the refridgerator. ‘One’ was written by Harry Nilsson while he was working at a bank and Three Dog Night’s version made it into the Top Five in 1969. Aimee Mann did a version in 1994 for a tribute album to Harry Nilsson which was then used five years later in the film Magnolia. I am not singing that version.”

Wife: “So, Encyclopedia Brown, had I said, ‘Why are you singing Harry Nilsson in the refrigerator?’ would this conversation still be taking place with you correcting me as to whose version you’re singing, or would I be that much closer to finding out the mystery of WHY you are singing into the refrigerator?”

Me: “Encyclopedia Brown is a fictional boy detective.”

Wife: “‘Mr. Know-It-All’?”

Me: “Mr. Know-It-All just gives advice.”

Wife: “You’re not answering the question.”

Me: “Sorry, you lost me with your excessive use of the word ‘refridgerator’. You know I don’t like that word.”

Wife: “I’m not going to stop using words you can’t spell.”

Me: “But does it make sense?!?! Why would the word ‘fridge’ have a ‘D’ in it, but not the word ‘refrigerator’?”

Wife: “Why is it that when you are speaking the word ‘refrigerator’ while thinking of its correct spelling, you pronounce each syllable?”

Me: “Never answer a question with a question… unless your one of those Zen Monks. Are you a Zen Monk? I don’t think so.”

Wife: “Re Frige Er A Tor.”

Me: “…”

Wife: “…”

Me: “Are you done?”

Wife: “Are you going to tell me what’s up with you singing a song, that three different people have sung, into the refrigerator?”

Me: “Zen monk?”

Wife: “Zen monk…E, back ‘atcha.”

Me: “Eep. Eep.”

Wife: “Fine. Be that way. And if you’re singing about that ONE beer you forgot you drank two days ago? Good luck with that.”

CURSES!

Me, shouting with my head deep in the refridgerator: “Honey! Remember when I -”

Wife: “Behind the beets.”

Me, shouting again: “Clever!”

Several moments later.

Me, still shouting: “I see no beets! I see no beer! Only my breath!”

Wife: “It’s in there.”

Me, shouting once again: “The beets or the beer?”

Wife: “Both. Wait. We ate the beets. Just the beer.”

Me, shouting for the last time: “I didn’t eat any beets! I see nothing! I think I’m snowblind! I’m coming out!”

Me, emerging from the chilly box rubbing my frosty head: “Help me, I’m Goofy.”

The wife gets up from the couch, walks to the fridge, opens the door, sticks in her hand and pulls out the bottle of beer.

Me: “Wow. How’d you do that?”

Wife: “I never hid the beer. It was right there in plain sight. It’s a little game I like to play with you called: ‘So-Fucking-Obvious’. It’s a lot of fun and I always win.”

CURSES!

… and I STILL HATE beets!

I’m winning! I’m winning!