My Wife talks to the TV. (And not in a way you can understand such as when your football team is on the three-yard line with their butts in the end zone, and the dufus coach calls an end sweep when any fool knows you need to pound it up the gut to gain a few yards and get some breathing room. So of course when the tailback gets buried in the end zone for a touchback, you scream at the TV, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, YOU MORON!!??” Because you know the coach is there at the game, right now in real time, and maybe he can’t hear you, but at least he can feel the love.) She talks to people on programs that are recorded. The other night on American Pickers, one of the hosts, Frank, bought a Texaco oil can for a hundred dollars. A graphic appeared on the screen:

“Do you really think someone is going to pay you three hundred bucks for an old oil can?” my wife asks Frank in disbelief. Frank ignores her.
Now setting aside the first rule of antiquing: Old things are worth more than new things—except for people, this is on the History Channel, so the can must have some huge historical significance, such as it was one of the cans General George Armstrong Custer used to lubricate his horse before the Battle at the Little Big Horn. But even setting that aside, the show was recorded months ago, maybe years ago because it might have been a rerun. Currently Frank is off slamming down a Flame Thrower Grill Burger, cheese curds and a Jurassic Chomp Blizzard Treat at some Dairy Queen. He can’t hear her, and even if he could, he’s either sold the oil can for a huge profit or taken a bath on it and that’s why he’s eating at Dairy Queen instead of some snooty five-star restaurant, but my wife doesn’t care. Frank needs to know how stupid he is for paying that kind of money for an old oil can, and she’s going to tell him.

My wife talks to detective shows, too. “Don’t go in there by yourself!!” she will scream at the TV screen as the female investigator enters an abandoned warehouse where a homicidal manic with a machine gun, chainsaw and a Texaco oil can, that could leave a nasty welt if he threw it at her, is hiding. “Why would you do that, you idiot!!??”

“Because the writer wants to build tension,” I’ll say. “If she had backup with her, it wouldn’t be as dramatic and scary.”

Her head will snap around, and she’ll glare at me as if I’m the one who’s crazy.

My wife is not the only one in our household who acts strange sometimes. She often accuses me of talking to myself. It’s a ridiculous misconception she has developed over the years from the numerous times she has heard me carrying on a conversation with someone when I was the only one in the room. Normally I explain it as going over dialogue for a novel, and how I have to say it out loud to get the emphasis and speech pattern right, but normally I’m just talking to myself. Sometimes I’m the only one I can find who is smart enough, or dumb enough, to agree with me.

When we catch each other doing weird things, my wife and I have this running joke about how the other one needs Nutso Pills. If I ever find where I can order some, I hope they come in five-gallon buckets.

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