Conversations with My Husband (Sample #3)

Ricky and I were listening to music when a Bonnie Raitt song came on. Bonnie started crooning about falling under the spell of a green-eyed jackal and being roasted on a spit of love.

"Have you ever been roasted on a spit of love?" I asked Ricky. (We had drunk a whole bottle of wine just the two of us.)

"No," said Ricky. He was trying to program the new cellphone he'd just gotten that day and did not look up from the phone.

"Have you ever fallen under the spell of a green-eyed jackal?" I asked. He seemed to be unaware that he was supposed to answer yes to this question since I have green eyes.

"No," said Ricky.

"But I have green eyes," I said, helping him out. "I'm not a green-eyed jackal? You haven't ever fallen under my spell?"

Ricky stopped focusing through the lower part of his progressive glasses and looked away from his phone, turning his head toward me.

"If falling under a spell can be a good thing, then, yes," he said.

"I don't think that would make a good song lyric," I said.

"I don't think I would be a good song writer," Ricky said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I overthink everything," said Ricky. "You have to just feel it."

"You don't think that Bob Dylan overthought things when he was writing songs?" I asked.

"He probably wouldn't have been popular today," said Ricky. "Would people want to listen to all those long lyrics now?"

I thought about this but could not do the proper analysis to answer this question. Ricky decided to answer himself.

"Well, maybe if he was a rapper," Ricky said. "Rap songs have a lot of lyrics."

Apparently I was never going to find out if I was, indeed, a green-eyed jackal.