How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (22 page)

Here is where you may conclude that this story expresses a low MQ, perhaps around 40, and that our relationship is doomed because invariably, one day we will find ourselves in a traffic jam that does not let up, I will succeed at throwing myself from the car, and the husband will find himself on trial for manslaughter because of my inability to accurately gauge traffic speed.

Again, you'd be wrong. Because that is not where this story ends. It continues.

Now we are waiting at the bar of the pizza restaurant, aggressively not speaking to each other. From out of nowhere, a gentleman stumbles toward us; it's clear that he is tipsy. He sways back and forth while making polite small talk and then turns to the husband and poses the question, “Do you like your wife's stinky drawers?” The eyes of the husband go wide, at which point he clears his throat and mumbles something like, “Begyourpardon?”

The man delivers a stirring monologue, in the middle of this family restaurant, about how deeply he loves his wife and how much he appreciates and reveres her “stinky drawers.” And while he rhapsodizes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cotton handkerchief to wipe his brow; only after he mops and refolds does it become clear that the handkerchief is not a handkerchief but is, in fact, a pair of his wife's aforementioned stinky drawers.

Without a word, the husband smiles and grabs my hand. I take his gesture both as a signal to me that (a) should this social interaction get any weirder, he will protect me; also (b) to indicate that if he must experience this stranger-than-fiction moment, he is glad to be sharing it with me.

The man bids us adieu, then stumbles out of the restaurant and into a cab, headed for, I'm guessing, his home and his probably pantyless wife. Moments after that the husband and I are sitting in a booth, eating pizza, laughing, and thanking the universe for providing us with moments like this. And when we return home that night, I put my shoes away.

Marriage Quotient: 74

EXHIBIT C

The husband has encouraged me to take a night off with friends while he stays home and takes care of our daughter, who is about a year old at this point.

I am driving with my friend Renee. When my cell phone rings, I ask Renee to answer the call; she does. It's the husband. She puts him on speakerphone.

“Hi!” I say.

“Hey . . .” His voice is strained, his breath shallow. I recognize this “hey”; something bad has happened.

“Is everything all right?”

“I—I have to ask you something . . .”

I pull over to the side of the road. “What's wrong? Is the baby okay?”

“Did you . . . Have you . . .” His voice through the speaker is quiet and strained. “Were you sewing today?”

“Was I . . .
sewing
?” I ask, just to make sure I've heard him right.

“Were you sewing?” he asks again.

“No. Why?”

“Are you sure?” His voice becomes louder, more insistent. “You're
sure
you weren't recently sewing?”

I look to Renee in the passenger seat. She is as confused and disturbed by this line of questioning as I am.

“What happened?” I ask. “Did you step on a needle or something?”

“It's—it's bad. Are you sure you weren't sewing?

“Why do you keep asking me that? Oh, God, is the baby hurt? Did she eat a pin?! Will you please tell me what's happened?”

He takes a breath. “I just went to the bathroom. I think—I . . . I passed a huge tapeworm. Oh, my God, I'm never eating sushi again . . .”

I pause to think for a moment. “Oh, wait. I did floss my teeth this morning . . .”

Silence. Then, the sound of a toilet lid opening.

“Oh. Yeah. That was it.”

We hang up the phone, and Renee and I continue on our way to TGI Fridays.

This example displays deep strength at the core of our marriage. In the first place, the husband showed
care and concern when he encouraged me to spend the evening with a friend; he also demonstrated his trust in me when he bravely shared his fears and concerns with me. I, in turn, showed deep abiding respect and restraint by waiting until we had hung up the phone to laugh with my friend in silent stereo until our faces were soaked and our diaphragm muscles were destroyed.

Marriage Quotient: 83 (plus 10 bonus points for letting me tell this story) = 93

EXHIBIT D

I am standing in the shower, enjoying the peaceful sensation of warm water cascading down my body when, unbeknownst to me, the husband strolls into the bathroom unannounced and unleashes a sneeze that is so loud and violent—and, dare I say, hostile—it's as though a bullet has been fired directly into my ear: it's an atomic bomb of sound and snot that startles me so badly it gives me whiplash . . . naked whiplash. My immediate reaction is to bellow a loud and angry, “WHAT THE FUUUUUUHHH—!!!” Then I stop, compose myself, and utter a polite “Gesundheit,” to which he responds with a quiet, “Thank you.”

You may conclude that this moment demonstrates my ability to transcend petty feelings and momentary frustration. I would respectfully disagree and submit that if he loved me more, he'd figure out some way, perhaps through surgical means, to never, ever sneeze
again. Clearly, this is an area that needs to be worked on. By him.

Marriage quotient: 17

I could go on, but I think you get my points:

       
1.
  
that what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas, but leads to a Jewish wedding

       
2.
  
that my social theory and math skills are questionable at best

       
3.
  
that partial facial paralysis, within the bonds of matrimony, can in some cases be considered a turn-on

And if you take only one thing away, let it be this: that marriage works because of its power to act as a buffer against the human trials of fear, anger, sadness, and some strange man's wife's underwear.

fourteen

THE BINKY WAR DIARIES

D
ECEMBER
28, 2006, 11:26
P.M.

O
ur daughter is a few hours old and emitting a sound that could shatter a pair of glass eyes. She has been crying since the moment she flew out of me, and neither my husband nor I have the foggiest idea how to stop it.

The husband looks like a character in a psychological thriller who has just discovered that everything in his life is a lie, while I—a person who has just been torn apart from the inside out by a thrashing, indignant nine-pound garden slug—can't be trusted to have a useful thought about anything right now.

Suddenly, there is a wizened old nurse in the room, though neither of us saw her enter. She leans over the baby and sticks a complimentary green pacifier into the
baby's yell-hole. The baby closes her gaping maw around it, begins to suckle, and then is quiet, for the first time in her life.

The H and I are struck mute with gratitude. The thousand- year-old nurse says, “You're lucky. Not all babies take to it. That Binky will bring you a lot of peace in the days ahead.” And as the ancient woman slips out of the room, that is exactly how we feel: lucky.

F
EBRUARY
23, 2007

They call the first three months of a baby's life “the fourth trimester.” I call it the apocalypse. There is so much sleeplessness and tears and vomit and random bodily fluids projecting themselves skyward—it's the third circle of hell, and it smells like the inside of a Lollapalooza porta-potty.

And the Binky, the Binky has turned into a tool of the chaos. Sure, it stops the screaming, but only when it's firmly embedded in the child's scream-cave, which is almost never, because this demanding beast hasn't figured out how to use her G.D. hands yet. Her tendency to fumble and drop the pacifier is endless, and unless one of us dives from forty feet across the room to retrieve and stick it back in her mouth within .05 nanoseconds, she unleashes a 90-decibel warning that sounds like a backward Latin curse from the Book of the Dead.

Look, I understand that it's “illegal” to duct tape a pacifier to a baby's face. Fine. But we can't even glue it to her hand? Since when are we living in a fascist state?!

J
UNE
12, 2007

We are hostages in our own home. We cannot leave the house without having a minimum of three pacifiers within arm's reach at all times. Last week we were stuck in freeway traffic when I realized that, although there are upwards of forty-two Binkies littering the floor of our living room (not counting the seven lint-crusted ones under the couch), there was not one to be found in the car, where we were.