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“Listen to this,” I said to Paul, lost to the world as he searched for after-market parts for his vehicle. It’s hard for me to apply the word ‘car’ to a three-wheeled vintage contraption, so vehicle shall have to suffice. “It says in this article that the average married couple only communicates twenty-seven minutes per WEEK.”

Paul grunted, eyes glued to his tablet.

“Twenty-seven minutes,” I repeated. Crickets.

“PAUL,” I said sharply.

I was met with the same irksome tone. “WHAT?”

“The average couple only speaks a total of twenty-seven minutes a week.”

“So?” he replied.

“So, we’ve got some catching up to do.”

Later that evening, as we sat down to dinner, which meant pulling stools up to the counter and wolfing down our meals before the JUST-fed cats began yowling, Paul mumbled through his pasta. “We talk more than twenty-seven minutes a week. We talk at least that much every day.”

“We don’t,” I said with snort. “Like the article says, couples average four minutes a day.”

“That’s crazy.”

Leaning back and wiping my mouth, I said, “Welp, let’s look at today. We got up, fed the cats and dogs. You said we were almost out of dog food. I said OK, and then I went to the barn to feed the horses. When I came back in, you said you were taking a drive with the car club, and I said OK, have fun. Fast forward to late afternoon. We fed all the animals again; I asked how the drive was, and you said it was fun and you’d all had a nice lunch in Rutherfordton. Then I said I could make salmon wraps for dinner, and you said fine. We ate, watched TV, looked at our phones, and went to bed. Total communication time, well under four minutes.”

“OK,” Paul said, placing his phone down on the counter. “What do you want to talk about?”

We stared at each other for a moment. Then a minute. Then two.

I checked my watch. “Think of something,” I said. “We’ve gotta kill another minute if we’re going to even make it to four minutes.”

His eyes suddenly lit with inspiration. “Did you remember to get dog food?”

“Yes,” I replied. Watching the second hand of the watch face crawl, I added, “But I only got a small bag.” And in a desperate attempt to flesh out the sentence, I sputtered, “Because the only big bags were for puppies with little kibble, so I got the small bag…” 

The second hand still showed three-quarters of a minute to go.

“And, luckily, there were lots of flavors to choose from, so I thought maybe this time, for a change,” I began talking as if in slow motion as the second hand came around to twelve, “they…might…enjoyyyyyyyy….BISON!”

The relief! I sank down on the sofa and nodded towards the coffee table. “Hand me my phone, will ya?”