FALURE OF COMMUNICATION

My wife Betty and I were in our middle years when we both began to feel a bit crushed by the pressures of child-rearing. Our three girls were all teenagers and every night a new Greek tragedy would unfold in our living room. Kelsey was getting fat, Susie was getting thin and Daphne's eyes were always so bloodshot we were sure she had dysentery.

Needless to say our marriage, rather than being a source of consolation was a bestiary of small slights and major conflagrations.

I felt so desperate at the time that to soothe my ever increasing anxiety I began to compile a list or more precisely, a glossary of our misunderstandings.

I found it the other day and upon reading it I was amazed that Betty and I came out of the whole ordeal more or less in one piece.

I called it "What You Said And What She Heard: A Guide For The Perplexed."

Here are  a few highlights:

HOW WAS WORK? -------------------------------YOUR STUPID JOB IS BENEATH YOUR DIGNITY

WOULD YOU LIKE MORE SALAD? -------------------------------------------------------- YOU'RE FAT

REMEMBER TO PICK UP THE DRY CLEANING --------------------- YOU'RE AN IMBECILE

CAN YOU TURN DOWN THE VOLUME --- YOU THINK MY TASTE IN MUSIC STINKS

DID YOU BUY MILK --------------------------------------- YOU'RE A ROTTEN MOTHER

DAPHNE WAS SUSPENDED FOR SMOKING POT ------- YOU'RE A ROTTEN MOTHER

DAPHNE WAS SUSPENDED FOR DRINKING -------------------- YOU'RE AN ALCOHOLIC

ARE YOU COMING TO BED SOON ---------------------------------------------- I MUST HAVE SEX

WHAT TIME DID YOU GO TO BED LAST NIGHT ------------ ----------YOU'RE A FRIGID BITCH

I'M WALKING THE DOG ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FUCK OFF!

Etcetera, etcetera, you get the idea.

In my old age I've come to the belated realization that true, hard love is something one has to earn. All too often we turn our partners into these diabolical mounds of clay which we knead and mold into conveniently self-defeating forms in order to assuage our savage insecurities.

I retrospect, I don't think I could have survived if I didn't have HBO.  

Or Xanax. 

Or a mistress.