OneEar Forced to Re-live Superhero’s Reunion in Excruciating Detail

MrsEar and I had the pleasure of spending 6 hours in the car together yesterday as we drove to and fro to drop off the little Ears with GrandmaEar and GrandpaEar. This provided the opportunity for the little exchange that I like to call “Probe the Ear.”

It is not nearly as exciting or tantalizing as it sounds. Rather, it is an exercise in intense interrogation and the defense thereto. It combines a fishing expedition for information with a fact check for inconsistencies with an opportunity for censure. Other couples call this “conversation.” MrsEar calls it, “How was your weekend?”

MrsEar: So, how was your weekend?
OneEar: Fine.
MrsEar: What did you guys do?
OneEar: “The Usual”
MrsEar (suspiciously): Why did you make those quotation marks in the air when you said “the Usual?”
OneEar: I don’t know.
(Long pause)
MrsEar (resuming a pleasant but cautious tone): Where did Mrs. Coco and the little Coco’s go while you guys were in town?
OneEar: I think they went to a waterpark.
MrsEar: Who did they go with?
OneEar: I don’t know.
(Long pause)
MrsEar (tacking for a different approach angle): Did you get to see Baby Coco?
OneEar: Yes.
MrsEar: How is he?
OneEar (confidently): Fine. He is cute.
MrsEar (warmly): Why, what did he do?
OneEar (hesitantly): He crawled.
(Long pause)
OneEar (frantically): He does other baby stuff.
(Long pause)
OneEar (panicking): I think he does simple math.
(Long pause)
MrsEar (her head already shaking): How is Alceste?
OneEar (confidently): Fine.
MrsEar: He has a new job?
OneEar: I think so.
MrsEar (clearly irritated): What is Mrs. Alceste doing now?
OneEar: I’m not sure.
MrsEar: Is Dr. LBok still dating the same woman?
OneEar: I’m not sure.
MrsEar: What about Ono?
OneEar (confidently): He’s fine.
MrsEar: And Mrs Ono and the kids?
OneEar: I think they’re fine.
MrsEar (sarcastically): Sparky’s wife and kids are “fine” too I take it?
OneEar: I think so.
MrsEar (angrily): You haven’t seen each other for a year and then you spend every waking minute together for 4 days, what in the Hell did you guys talk about?
OneEar (thinking intensely): I’m not sure.
(long pause)
OneEar: In fairness, I was out of commission one of the days.
(long pause)
OneEar: Dr. Bok makes his own scotch whiskey!
(OneEar smiles smugly at the fact that he has remembered a concrete fact from the previous weekend. MrsEar misinterprets the smugness as contempt and the non-sequitur statement as insolence).
(long pause)
MrsEar (exasperated): Why on Earth would he make his own scotch whiskey?
OneEar (honestly): I’m not sure.

And so on for 6 hours.