Are you ever doing a task in the evening, an unromantic and unpartyish task such as descaling a coffee pot with vinegar, and you’re using a paper towel to dab up excess hot vinegar condensation and use it to really GET AT the little details of the inside of the coffee-pot lid, and you think to yourself that you could have lived so many other lives that were not this one, for example you could have stayed single and lived in Paris, etc.? I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, but this evening it occurred to me I would still need to descale my coffee pot if I were single and living in Paris.
Paul and I just had an odd exchange, and neither of us can figure out how to make it sound as MIND-BLOWING to others as it was to us. Here is what happened. He began on a good foot, conversationally-speaking: “I have just learned a new fact.” I was attentive, as expected. He said, “GUESS WHO I just found out played a PIVOTAL ROLE in [some silly getting-kids-to-brush-their-teeth song Paul liked as a child]?” And, like, obviously I have no idea, this song is not from my childhood, I find it kind of annoying after nearly three decades of hearing Paul sing snippets of it, and it sounds like it’s from the 1950s as most of his childhood favorites do; and so I did what we do in our relationship in these situations, which is that I YELLED OUT the very first DUMB/FUNNY GUESS that came into my mind. I yelled as follows: “PENN OF PENN AND TELLER.” Then I realized I meant the one who doesn’t talk, which would be a funnier guess, so I immediately corrected it and yelled “I MEAN TELLER OF PENN AND TELLER.” And Paul went completely silent, and he said, in a voice as if he had seen the water turn into wine right in front of him and as if I had been the one to turn it: “It was Penn Jillette. How did you. How did you know that.”
Well, I didn’t. I didn’t AT ALL. I was making a joke, and not even a good joke, and in fact even my joke was wrong, since I changed it to Teller. If I had been trying to guess for real, I would not have guessed Penn Jillette, because I would have assumed the song in question was from Penn Jillette’s early childhood or before. So my hands flew to my mouth, and my face went hot with the weirdness of me accidentally saying the right answer as a joke and with the earnestness with which I was attempting to assure an astounded-to-the-point-of-shock Paul that I HAD NOT AT ALL KNOWN. (You might be tempted to wonder why, or even be a little offended on my behalf that Paul would be SO SHOCKED that I’d gotten it right: how should he know what interesting facts I might or might not know? But in this case he was right to be shocked: this song, and also Penn and Teller, are in HIS realm; I am ALSO a fan, but no one would consider me a good source of Penn and Teller trivia. This is as if I’d said to Paul, “I have just learned a new fact. GUESS WHAT [obscure baby name thing from the 1950s]?,” and he had YELLED OUT (in our familiar “I do not know so I am yelling out a dumb/funny guess” way”) the EXACT ANSWER, JUST BY CHANCE.
Anyway, William’s immediate and certainly accurate theory is that this is the wonder of two aging minds combined: that Paul has discovered this fact before; that he has told me; that I have forgotten it; and that when Paul asked the question, and the mice in my brain went looking into the filing cabinets for a quick joke, they instead accurately accessed the file with the answer. William further theorizes that in fact we have this amazing conversation about every five years, and will continue to do so until our deaths.
Then Elizabeth came home from work, and we told her the story, and she said almost word-for-word the same thing William had said, including the part about every five years, so Paul says he thinks ALL of us need to get out more.
This is the best story! Kevin walked in to me loling and wondered why. Remarkably he thinks the kids are right.
William’s/Elizabeth’s analysis made me laugh out loud, too. Maybe because it sounds like something my nearly the same age kids would say.
I am 100% likely to forget conversations; my husband is not. If I was married to male-me, I could see this happening all the time. But, I bet you and Paul will NOT forget it was Penn next time! That would freak me out.
Alternate theory: Paul has a very specific “I have just learned a new fact about Penn Gillette” expression that you don’t even realize that you recognize.
This is killing me rn.
Swis, you make me laugh and I still have the funny grin on my face, though I read this 4 minutes ago.
I love everything about this story.
All you have to do to make it as mind-blowing to me as it is to you is TELL IT, because it’s a MIND-BLOWING story! And I don’t buy the kids’ story even though it’s not implausible, or unfunny. I think it was just one of those whack-ass things that make life weird and enjoyable.
I had a similar experience once! I was nannying, and turned to the 9-year-old. “What’s that movie…?”
“Spirited Away?”
Yes. She was exactly right.
We had not talked of this movie in ages, if ever. We had not watched it or related movies (we very, very rarely watched movies). I have NO IDEA how she could read my mind in that moment. We were both DELIGHTED.
Hahahahaha this whole thing is making me laugh. Thanks! :-)
Maybe William and Elizabeth are correct, but maybe there was just a really interesting psychic connection! Something similar happened to me recently. My husband was telling me about a colleague of his who went to Florida for a conference for her husband’s work. He said to me, “Speaking of depressing, guess who E saw in concert at this conference?” and I immediately said “KC and the Sunshine Band.” I WAS RIGHT. He was gobsmacked, he asked if we were on FB together (we aren’t), how did I know, and it was a guess but it seemed like the best possible guess! If I was wrong, my second guess would have been the Beach Boys.
A similar funny thing happened to me last month. My teen-aged son and I were getting ready to make dessert for an early Valentine’s Day celebration, but he did not want to celebrate the artificial and commercial holiday of Valentine’s Day. I suggested we celebrate some alternative holiday instead, such as… I mentally cast about for some significant person my son would value… Charles Darwin’s birthday. When is Charles Darwin’s birthday, we wondered, and I googled it and learned that it was February 12th, the very day this incident was happening. Mind blown. I suppose it’s possible that the date of Darwin’s birth was stored somewhere deep in my brain, but I had know sense at all of recognition when I read that date on my phone, just an astonished feeling that the person I randomly chose was actually born that same day.
I love this! Also, Abraham Lincoln was born Feb 12, 1809, like Darwin.
Re: descaling in Paris. I do live in Paris (though not single) and if you lived here you would spend even more time descaling because the water here is so hard. We actually buy bottled water for the nice coffee maker bc it is AN ISSUE. 😀
I love the dumb/funny guess thing, and the kids’ explanation- they’re onto you! Something similar happened at our house recently, though unfortunately it involved farts. One of the kids either farted or mentioned farts, and then my husband and I turned to each other and both said “Fwerrrp!” Which is from the board book Toot by Leslie Patricelli, and it’s not the only fart sound in the book, so we both went through our mental index of the fart sounds in the book and chose that one. Sorry not sorry.
At least now you have a record of it so in five years when it happens again you can find this post and know EXACTLY what’s up!
I’m not sure this is the same, but I will tell this story. My grandparents used to babysit me when I was about 4 years old. They would take me on errands or to the mall with them, and then let themselves in to my parents’ home so I could go to bed and they would wait until my parents got home (my parents worked second shift). Well, they frequently forgot my parents’ house keys and would have to return to their house, get the keys and then proceed to my parents’ house. English was their primary language, but they sometimes spoke Polish to one another.
We were at the mall and I was balancing on a low brick wall. My grandfather exclaimed to my grandmother something in Polish and she replied. I hopped down, grabbed both their hands, and said “You forgot the keys and grandma wants to get going.” I was 4, knew no Polish, and they didn’t use it regularly. in front of me.
My grandfather absolutely freaked out. He truly thought I understood everything he said.
I love all these kinds of moments and stories about them, because they feel, for those few seconds (and residually, if you are lucky) like magic. Which, when life is often just descaling coffee pots, most needed.
I love this comment! So true!
This is a delightful story. Thank you
Ok, I’m going to need to know the song now. ;)
Well if this didn’t just brighten my day.
I’m picturing you both at 95, gobsmacked once again: Yes, it was Penn Jillette. How did you know that.
It’s like a little short story, maybe by Alice Munro.
I was eight or nine and sitting at a restaurant with my family, waiting for food. My mom and I were playing hangman, and it was my turn to guess. She drew up a new game, a five letter word. I squinted at it and guessed, “Happy?” IT WAS HAPPY.