Mars & Venus on the Couch

Tonight we're watching a repeat of "Scrubs" when a new Sprint commercial comes on. Perhaps you've seen it. Accelerated grey film with neon-like doodles that appear and change along with the voiceover. Toward the beginning is a line that goes something like, "When you were young, what did you dream about as you fell asleep?"

At which point my husband, sitting next to me on the couch with feet propped on the coffee table, says as though on cue, "Boobs."

"What?"

"Boobs. Didn't you see the boobs just then?"

"Oh my God," I'm laughing now, "WHAT?!"

"Those were boobs."

"Ron, seriously. Oh my God, those were not boobs!"

"Those were subliminal, neon boobs!"

I get up and walk into the kitchen to get a drink. "You have lost your shit," I say.

"They were boobs," he says, rising as I sink back into my seat. Five minutes later he is still not back. I mute the television. The distinctive clatter of a computer keyboard. I know exactly what he's doing, which triggers in me an eye roll reminiscent of the finest slot machines.

"Ron," I get up and walk into the kitchen where he is hunched over my keyboard, gazing pie-eyed up at the monitor, "seriously, you are not--"

"See?!" he interrupts, "They are BOOBS!" He has of course, being my husband, Googled the new Sprint commercial, played it, and frozen the screen on the moment in question.

"Fine Dear," I concede with only a hint of sarcasm, "they are boobs. Hairy, blinking boobs," referring to their apparent eyelashes and deceptively eye-like motion. Not to mention that they are floating among similarly drawn stars, as though suggesting nighttime and sleep. Unless he thinks the stars are fireworks someone has shot off to celebrate the appearance of magical, disembodied breasts.

"You can't tell me they didn't do that on purpose," he says.

"Sure I can." Oh, Testoste-Ron. You dear, sweet Man.