The pizza arrived, a thin crust vegetarian. I found my wife on the couch in the family room, the TV on, her snoring and a ballgame the only sounds in the room.
“Gail,” I said, “the pizza is here are you hungry?” She kept snoring, a light very feminine snore. “Gail,” I yelled, she awoke, startled, I was immediately sorry I hadn’t taken the time to walk over and gently shake her awake, but it was too late for that, the damage was done. Oh yes, she was annoyed, and angry, and it was a righteous anger.
Later the boys and I sat down to watch a movie, I, thinking the anger had passed, made a crack about sleeping beauty and the beast reappeared and took me to task once again.
I tried to defend myself with the only possible tool, humor.
“You do the same thing to me,” I said.
“Never,” she replied.
“Uh huh,” I said.
“Give me a single example of where I yelled to wake you up.
“You do it almost every morning,” I said.
“Okay smart ass,” she said “explain.”
I looked at my audience, the boys, and smiled.
“Yap Yap,” I said, doing my best impression of our barking dog Chole and then in what I must say was a pretty good impression of my wife noble effort to get the dog to be quiet so I could sleep a little longer yelling, “CHOLE QUIT BARKING, CHLOE, CHLOOEE!”
I continued to address the boys, and on other mornings it’s “Harry leave Tegan alone, in an equally loud voice. Harry and Tegan are cats, Harry a young male and Tegan an elegant old lady.
I looked over at Gail to see whether I was off the hook yet, or still in the stew of my own making. The boys were laughing, and she had the hint of a smile on her lips.
“Tegan’s a person too,” I said.