When Married People Snort

Saturday night we were invited to dinner by a couple we don't know well, the parents of a girl that Rooster plays with at daycare.

Until Saturday we had never socialized with them beyond running into them at the school and the odd meeting at the local playground.

I like them both, but I was a little nervous.

[How long would it take for these cool people to figure out what a complete and utter dork I am?]

When we arrived, their daughter (my daughter's friend), appeared at the top of their staircase to greet us.

She was completely naked.

She stretched her arms to the heavens and spread her legs wide apart.

"Ta DA!" she yelled.

Her mom blushed.

"Ta DA!!" she yelled again jumping down a step.

She jumped down one step at a time and with each landing she announced her impressive nakedness with another,

"Ta DA!"

Her mom hurried her back up the stairs to dress her, but before she went she told us that her husband was taking a shower because he had just finished cooking.

In an act of extreme culinary ambitiousness (in my opinion) he prepared home-made tamales.

Now I LOVE tamales, but for the love of HAY-SEUSS!

You have to make the filling and then hand tie it into corn husks AND make sauce.

Oh, the over-achieving dinner host!

[I now have performance anxiety about returning the favor and inviting them to our house.]

When both parents and their re-clothed daughter joined us again, the husband started making a pot of noodles for the kids.

[Yes! More tamales for ME!]

While he cooked, I asked about his work teaching political science at a local university.

I asked him what his area of focus had been lately and, as he told us about it, I asked a lot of questions.

When he offered to e-mail me the two most recent papers he had published, his wife snorted.

I mean, she SNORTED.

Unable to ignore the snort, K and I turned to look at her.

Something about our noticing the snort sent her over the snorting edge.

Her husband stared at her in disbelief as if he was thinking,

"Did she really just SNORT at the idea of me sharing my published papers with our dinner guests?"

With all three sets of eyes trained on her, her laughing became uncontrollable. She was laughing so hard she was practically crying.

Which of course made K and I start laughing uncontrollably.

Our male host's jaw hung open and his gaze stayed fixed on his wife while the three of us HOWLED.

Steam from the noodles rose up and seemed to come straight out of his ears.

Tears streamed down our cheeks, poor guy.

Slowly, slowly an embarrassed smile spread across his face.

Oh, the universal realities of married life.

Only your spouse, who has both seen you naked AND heard your professional spiel a billion times, can so openly snort at you like that.

[Scout's Honor, I'm interested in his work and WILL read his papers... that is if he sends them after all that.]