Nomad Online

It’s after dinner. We’re sitting outside on the balcony. The citronella candles are lit to keep the mosquitos away and the cricket is on the television.

I turn to my husband and say, “Quick. Give me an article, an adjective and a noun. I’m going to write a blog post about it.”

“The”

“Okay.”

“Quick”

“Yes…”

“Fox.”

Great. Trust him not to take this seriously. I wonder if it was brown and jumped over the lazy dog too.

“Oh come on. I’m going to write a blog post about this. An article, an adjective and a noun please.”

“The…”

“Yep.”

“Lazy…”

I can almost guess the next part. I stare at him. Daring him to say it.

“Dog.”

I knew it. The ratbag. I should have known this sort of unhelpfulness would be part of my life when I married him.

He looks pretty pleased with himself. It’s cute. But I’m too annoyed with him to take any notice.

I call my son out to the balcony.

“Okay. Help your mum out. Give me three words. An article, an adjective and a noun.”

“Sure mum. The. Pink. Pig.” he replies and dashes back into the living room to play on his computer.

Wow. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

So my options are one quick fox, a lazy dog and the pink pig. None of which stirs my imagination to write a blog post of five to six hundred words.

On the verge of giving up, I start thinking of choosing three words myself. Inspired by my husband and son, I think I would pick “An. Unhappy. Blogger.”

I draw my son out to the balcony again and read out what I’ve written. He cackles with glee. His father grins at his enjoyment. And I realise I love them both very much.

I wasn’t looking for a relationship when I met my husband. I was quite over the notion of getting married when he came into my life. But it seems God had other plans. And here we are, sixteen years later, still married and irritating each other as we do life together.

I have come to know him better with the passing years. He may bark his annoyance or mercilessly tease people, but I’ve also seen his mortification when one of his sharp jokes accidentally wounds someone. He’s all talk. Albeit often funny talk.

He is also a great dad who loves his son. I know he loves me too. He keeps telling me all the stuff he does for me because of it.

Like the time he did the family grocery shop. As I was unpacking the food and putting it away, there was one ripe, sweet-smelling mango. He doesn’t like the fruit and my son doesn’t eat it. But there it was, at the bottom of the shopping bag because he knew I loved it.

He makes up little songs for me too. I dislike speed bumps and one day he chose to go down a lane without bumps instead of taking a more direct route that had speed bumps. I didn’t know he thought of me until he told me his reason for the detour in song.

My favourite song was the one he made up while driving to eat Iraqi food in Summer Hill — an inner west suburb of Sydney about thirty minutes away from where we live — on a busy, traffic packed Friday evening in peak hour.

The lyrics went like this:

I love driving through the city on a Friday night. 🎶
I do it because I want to keep my wife happy
I do it because I want to protect myself 

I love driving through the city on a Friday night
My wife wants to do weird things and it’s a pain in the neck
But I want to live so I think what the heck

I love driving through the city on a Friday night 🎵🎶

I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or murder him. He’s lucky he’s alive.

Despite his willingness to live on the edge, he is a good man. He is great with children and has a knack for making me laugh. He calls it a gift.

He is my blue eyed boy. My quick, silver haired, fox.

See what I did there?

But he must never know I called him a fox. I wouldn’t hear the end of it.

Featured image by Serhat Beyazkaya on Unsplash