Mike Pound: One-party conversations hard to remember

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March 5, 2010

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Fri Mar 05, 2010, 06:37 PM CST

She did it to me again.

By her, of course, I mean my wife. What my wife did to me again is, apparently, have a lengthy conversation with me without me — technically speaking — being present.

This time the phantom conversation took place at last week’s annual St. Ann’s trivia contest in Carthage. The St. Ann’s trivia contest is, as far as I’m concerned, the greatest fundraiser ever. Folks pony up money to enter a team of friends in the contest. The teams bring their own food and drinks and, at the end of the night, clean up their own messes.

It’s a lot like a session of Congress only in reverse.

My wife and several of the other women on our trivia team were busy setting up our food table while I stood with the men on our team and talked. While we chatted, I looked around the room and saw that at almost every team table the same thing was occurring. I don’t think the reason we men didn’t offer to help set out the food was because we were lazy; I think it was because we didn’t care how the food was set out.

But that’s just what I think.

After a while though I sort of felt guilty and walked over to help my wife set out our food. HAHAHAHA, sometimes I kill myself.

No, the reason I walked over to my wife was because she was standing next to our cooler and I needed to grab a beer. Given the fact that my wife was working pretty hard setting our food out on our table I didn’t think yelling, “Hey, honey get me a beer!” was a good idea. Call it a hunch.

When I got to my wife she was talking to our friend Leann. When my wife saw me she stopped talking and said, “Isn’t that right, Mike?”

I looked around, thinking there was someone else named Mike next to me. There wasn’t. So, I said what I always say when my wife asks me a question, seemingly out of the blue.

“I don’t have any idea,” is what I said.

Leann laughed.

“I love it how whenever (wife’s name) asks you something and you always say ‘I have no idea‚’” she said.

I told Leann that the reason I always say “I have no idea” when my wife asks me something is because I have no idea. And it’s not because I don’t pay attention to my wife when she talks. OK, sometimes it IS because I don’t pay attention to my wife when she talks. But it’s also because my wife has these conversations in her head that she thinks are being conducted outside of her head.

I don’t know how many times my wife has looked up at me and said something like: “Why do you think she would say that?” and I will look around to see who my wife is talking to only to discover she’s talking to me.

“I have no idea,” is what I then say.

Then my wife will sigh and give me her “You are so annoying look” and go back to her internal conversation.

Before I reached veteran husband status, my wife’s inner conversations used to bother me.

“My wife is Joan of Arc,” I would think to myself. “Which is cool, because that means my wife is French and I’ve always thought French women were hot. But then again, Joan of Arc got burned at the stake.”

Sometimes I think to myself too much.

But after a while I got used to the fact that my wife had conversations without me. I even grew to appreciate the mono-chats.

So now, when my wife asks me a question that is clearly based on a conversation she had without me I just smile and tell her that I have no idea, step around her and grab another beer. At least that’s what I did at the St. Ann’s trivia party.

My wife looked at me for a second while I was digging through our cooler and then got a very scary look on her face.

That’s when I offered to help set out our food.

I’m pretty sure that Joan of Arc’s husband would have done the same thing.

Address correspondence to Mike Pound, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802, or via e-mail at mpound@joplinglobe.com.

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Mike Pound: One-party conversations hard to remember

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