A few days before Christmas, my husband and I were shopping for the necessary food. We decided to split the list to make it go faster.

For some reason, other shoppers began watching whenever my husband and I met up to discuss anything.

I have an offbeat sense of humor. When the stares began to annoy me, I warned my husband what I would do if it continued.

The next time he came to me with a question, I loudly said, “No, sir, I will not go home with you to cook Christmas dinner!”

Aisle six suddenly appeared to be full of meerkats.

My husband is a mechanical engineer. He has been working from home lately, and he’s really enjoying it, for the most part. It is my day off, and I have been puttering around the apartment, cleaning.

Husband: “I hate to be this way, but would you be able to go into a different room? I have to practice for a presentation I have to give.”

Me: “Sure, or I could be a practice audience for you.”

Husband: “Well, the presentation has to be simple enough that people who don’t know anything about what I’m talking about will understand it but detailed enough that people that know a lot about it won’t have to ask questions that could derail things.”

Me: “That seems like I’d be the perfect practice audience, then.”

I like math, but I was never very good at it, and I would never be able to do the things he does with it.

Husband: “I hate to say it, my dear, but on this topic, I don’t think you even know enough to know absolutely nothing.”

He said it very nicely, but I took the point and moved to the other room.

My wife has two cats, and they are very well taken care of. We often joke that they eat better than us some days and more often, it’s not really a joke.

My wife sometimes makes bone broth from whatever chicken bones are left after meals and adds it to the cats’ food. For those who have never made or seen bone broth, it is a light yellow, slightly cloudy liquid. We also have a number of fruit trees on our property, including a Meyer lemon tree; we often juice the lemons and store it. That’s also a light yellow, slightly cloudy liquid.

One day, after making the cat’s food — before the second cat was adopted — my wife notices he isn’t eating his dinner. 

Wife: “He’s probably just being a cat. He’ll get hungry and eat it eventually.”

It wasn’t until late that night, food still untouched, that my wife realized she had not poured bone broth over the food, but lemon juice. To this day, she still gives me a look of death when I call the cat a sour puss.

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I’m in a fast food restaurant when I see a man walking to a table with a paper tray of Mexican food and a beer.

Man: “It is after twelve noon. I am not morning drinking. That is what you said.”

Man’s Wife: “You ain’t been up but thirty minutes!”

My husband and I are driving along Highway 520 near Seattle. I grew up in the area and he didn’t, so I’m not sure if he knows that once we pass by the interchange with Interstate 405, the high-occupancy vehicle lane — carpool lane — switches from two or more people in the car to three or more. As it’s only the two of us, we won’t be able to drive in the carpool lane past that point.

He’s driving and hasn’t made any indication that he’s going to move to one of the regular lanes. Thinking he doesn’t know about the three or more oddity, I tell him. In the Seattle area, we usually call interstates by their numbers only, so 405 is “four-oh-five.”

Me: “After 405, you’ll need to move to another lane. It becomes a three or more HOV lane.”

Husband: “What? That’s so arbitrary. How can they possibly enforce that?”

Me: “Arbitrary or not, it’s the law.”

Husband: “But that’s just ridiculous!”

Me: “Okay, but you should move over; a friend of mine got a ticket last month.”

Husband: “It’s crazy!”

Me: “That doesn’t matter! You’d still get a ticket if the state patrol catches you!”

Husband: “What, are they just waiting with their watches synchronized?”

Confused by his last comment and how annoyed he’s getting, I notice the time. It’s 3:59.

Me: “Wait… Do you think I’m saying that when the time is five minutes after four, the number of people needed to be in the HOV lane changes?”

Husband: “Isn’t that what you said?”

Me: “No, after we go past Interstate 405, you need three in the car to stay in the HOV lane.”

Husband: “That makes way more sense! I couldn’t believe the number of people was dependent on the time of day, and that the time would be 4:05 rather than 4:00 or 4:30!”