How To Stay Married

Tell me again how buttons are made

Longtime hubby and the SJG have very different ideas about home entertainment. He's happy to watch hours of the most mind-numbing programming ever created. It's his way of zoning out. I demand an engaging plot, top quality acting, a big splashy musical number, and at least one studly specimen with tight abs, to make it worth my while. He'll watch a show about plumbing. I'll watch a show that features a hunky plumber. He'll watch a show about how buttons are made. I'm incapable of sewing a button on. But that doesn't mean I can't feign interest. I'm good for about five minutes and then my brain goes elsewhere. He feigns interest in things that interest me, too. While one of us expounds on the topic at hand -- why he hates the gas station on the corner, or why I hate the way "The Bachelor" amps up the bitchy in-fighting -- the other one nods and says pithy things like, "Oh, really!" and "Wow," and "Do tell!" In this way, and many others, we stay married.