(I observe this couple in a gift shop.)
Wife: *picks up a realistic stuffed narwhal toy* “Aww, honey, look at this!”
Husband: “What is that?! Is that, like, one of them platypuses?”
Wife: “No, it’s a narwhal!”
Husband: “A what?”
Wife: “A narwhal. It’s a whale with a horn that lives in the Arctic.”
Husband: “And… it’s real?”
Wife: “Yes, it’s real! Have you seriously never heard of a narwhal?!”
Husband: “Never. That thing looks like a f****** unicorn-manatee or something!”
(I’m not sure what’s stranger — that this guy had never heard of a narwhal, or that he had apparently heard of a platypus but thinks it looks like a whale!)
(My wife and I are in adult Sunday School when the teacher is covering Galatians 5:22-23.)
Teacher: *reading* “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Me: *whispering to wife* “Wow, hard to be good in so many ways.”
Wife: *whispering to me* “Just pick one.”
(In this story, I am sitting downstairs with my husband and our roommate. I am on our roommate’s laptop doing a search for them as they are terrible about finding things online. My husband is playing a game on his phone while I do this.)
Husband: “There are these two other players in the game who always talk to each other in this other language. I don’t know if it is Russian or Hebrew. You’re good at that sort of thing; take a look.”
(I am currently only fluent in English, but I am learning Swedish on a language app. I can usually tell which language something is in, although there are times where I can’t. I go over to look at the phone, he shows me, and I take a quick look and go back to what I was doing.)
Me: “That looks like it is either Greek or Russian. I didn’t get a good look at it.”
Husband: “Probably Russian, then; nobody speaks Greek nowadays since it is a dead language.”
Me: *looks back up and gives him a strange look* “I think you are confusing that with Latin.”
Husband: *shrugs* “I know Latin is, but I am pretty sure Greek is a dead language, too.”
Me: *looks back and forth between him and the laptop I am currently on* “No, there are still people in the world who speak Greek.”
Husband: “Not that many, though.”
(I just stared at him for a few seconds and then dropped the subject to continue what I was doing, but internally I was shaking my head. I looked it up the next day; Greek is spoken by about 13 million people.)
(When my late husband and I are first getting married in 2009, his family is going through the old saying, “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” This is the little conversation I have with his mother and sister. It’s worth noting that my late husband is 18 years my senior; we marry when I am 19 and he is 37.)
Sister: “Okay, got your… something new?”
Me: *holds up ring*
Mother: “Something borrowed?”
Me: “My sister is letting me use her tiara.”
Sister: “Something blue?”
Me: “My garter will be blue.”
Sister: “What about something old?”
Me: *looks directly at husband*
Husband: “Hey!”
Sister & Mother: *laughing hysterically*
Me: “Well! You are my something old!”
Husband: *laughing*
Me: “So, uh… Do I have to have a penny in my shoe?”
(We joked about that for years until his death. Even now, it’s a running joke for someone in his family to look at an older person when getting married, usually their father or uncle. And yes, I had a penny in my shoe.)
(Conversations like this are the normal thing in my household.)
Me: “Hmm… So, I am thinking about being dumb.”
Husband: “Oh?”
Me: “Because Nintendo Switch cartridges are so tiny, Nintendo has them coated in a non-toxic substance that tastes horrible to prevent them from being swallowed by little kids.”
Husband: “Oh, no.”
Me: “And Breath of the Wild is the only cartridge I have, but I’m tempted to pop it out and lick it just to see if it is true.”
Husband: *monotone* “That would be dumb, honey.”
