Wild Rice in the Hot Tub

Yesterday, in the hot tub at the local pool, my husband explained that I needed to make dinner because I hadn’t kept my promise to cook the wild rice the night before. He said this by soundlessly exaggerating his speech so I could lip read and then when he got to wild, rolling his eyes, sticking out his tongue, and shaking his arms all over the place.

I screeched with laughter. The other people in the hot tub watched and then looked away as if embarrassed on our behalf. Nobody seemed able to crack a smile at two old folks having a hugely funny moment, silent save for the huge laughs at the end. I can’t hear myself laughing so I’m not sure how loud I was. My husband never laughs out loud. I don’t know why.

This happens a lot at the pool because I can’t wear my cochlear implant processors in the water unless I encase them in little plastic coverings which is a painstaking operation with a high probability of going wrong. So, I leave them both in the locker and take my naked head to the pool. If we are swimming about in the same area, my husband and I have a running conversation. It is silent, though, until the laughing. People look at us and then look away, like they don’t know what to think of us.

I love this so much. You know how they say twins have their own language? That’s how it feels to have these silent, wacky mimed conversations with my husband. That he is so utterly oblivious to anyone watching him act out WILD rice is, I realize now after nearly forty years, the primary reason to have married him.

I am so lucky.

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Photo: mana5280 on Unsplash