Talking About Love

 

Spring seems to have sprung up. You can tell by the continuous rain and wind. The yard is now a soppy, leafy, swampland of decaying vegetation and melted snow. It’s the perfect place for two dogs to eat things that make them puke on my carpet, and gather all the crud from outside on their furry little bodies to bring inside to keep my broom and vacuum in action mode.

I really love spring.

You can also tell when spring is in the air because of the sudden rise in crime. Sub-zero temperatures are good for something—they keep criminal types indoors watching Oprah Winfrey and playing video games instead of out wandering the streets with itchy trigger fingers. But when temps rise, so does their interest in causing mayhem. Drive by shootings at school bus stops, stolen cars, rapes, assaults on people walking along the lake, are just some of the activities precipitated by the cheerful weather.

Be glad you don’t live down south where it’s warm all the time. Crime never freezes up.

Spring often heralds the blooming of love. Birds mate and twitter in the trees, bunnies multiply, and people plan June weddings. I’m not sure why June is supposed to be better than May or July, but June wins hands-down in the Bride’s favorite-month-to-wed survey. I know this because I once worked at a Wedding store.

For all those brides and grooms who feel all starry-eyed and sappy, hanging on to each other’s words like a tick on a dog, let me give you a dire warning:

Things can change.

I read today that a woman handcuffed herself to her sleeping husband just to get him to talk to her. Apparently, whenever she said, “we need to talk,” he ran away and hid. Of course, there are always three sides to every news story and I only heard the police officer’s side. He said the woman changed the locks on the bedroom door, and handcuffed her husband to herself while he slept. Then when he woke up and refused to talk to her, but instead called 911 on his cell phone, she bit him.

Now this story does seem to have a few holes in it. (besides the teeth marks in his skin) For one thing, why would she bother to handcuff herself to the man if all she had to do was call him on his cell phone? Obviously, he slept with it under his pillow or something and preferred this method of communication rather than face to face. Also, how did she change the lock on their bedroom door without the man waking up? Is he deaf as well as dumb? If I changed a lock on a door I’m sure there would be much banging and cursing.

Now I think the whole man/woman communication thing has gone away with the invention of the remote control. Once a guy sits down in front of a television screen and picks up that little black button pad, you can say bye-bye to any conversation that does not include, “I wonder how they trained that little Gecko lizard to talk,” or “could you get me some ice-cream, honey? “Dirty Jobs” is coming on.”

Technology is a curse on relationships. Cell phones, remotes, computers, Ipods, have all had a part in the disappearance of actual face-time. Guys love technology. They can easily become obsessed with gadgets that do things no one ever needed done until someone thought of making a gadget to do this unnecessary thing. (that’s why you will get a fancy blender with a jet engine and lots of buttons for your anniversary rather than jewelry or flowers until you’ve properly trained your man)They can stare at the little one-inch screen of a GPS for hours on end, setting destination points for finding junk that some other guy hid in the woods, just so they can say they found it and put it back again. They can spend hours downloading music onto a tiny music player in alphabetical order or play some crazy computer game for three days straight without blinking, but they have very low tolerance for conversations that begin with, “We never talk.” Their eyes glaze over, they break out into a cold sweat, and I think they may have ringing in their ears.

So, for the newlyweds, or soon to be newlyweds, remember that you should never allow technology into the bedroom. No cell phones, computers, Ipods, GPS, or televisions—until you’ve been married at least ten years. By then you won’t need to communicate verbally anymore. You already know what he’s not going to say anyway.

Breathe deep. Spring is here. Pollen is thawing. Crime is rising. Buds are bursting to open. And young couples are still so in love they talk about nothing at all.