Opinion

Very spatial relationships

Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Dick Wolfsie

My wife is smarter than I am. She has, for most of our marriage, been professionally more successful.

She is far better looking and is a better parent.

I wanted to tell you this upfront because I'm going to make fun of her now and I don't want you think I'm a total jerk.

As you'll see, I'm still not taking any chances.

This all started a few weeks ago when I was driving Mary Ellen's car and noticed that in six months she had gone exactly the number of miles allotted to her on the lease. Pleased we had made the right consumer choice, I used the circumstance to initiate some lively marital patter.

"Mary Ellen, guess how many miles you've driven since you got the car?" I asked.

"Heavens, I don't know. If I had to guess, 800 miles."

"Eight hundred miles? You've had the car for six months. You've driven 20 miles round-trip to work every day, five days a week for six months. How can you say 800 miles?"

"Well, you forgot to count shopping. That's why I guessed so high."

(My wife has an MBA. She's been an administrator at Butler University. Her IQ is 20 points higher than mine. OK, back to making fun of her...)

I began to realize that Mary Ellen has no sense of distance, speed or time. A few examples:

"Mary Ellen, how far is it from New York to California?"

"I'll say 50,000 miles."

"That's not even close."

"Well, don't go by my odometer. It was 6,000 off on my trip to work."

"Let's try it another way. If you got in the car in New York and drove straight to California, how long would it take?"

"In months?"

"Months? We could travel from New York to LA in less than a week."

"Not if we stop in Vegas. What's the big rush?"

(My wife dresses better than I do, has better manners, understands movies and speaks German. OK, now back to the needling.)

"Mary Ellen, how far is it from the earth to the moon?"

"Not a clue. I'll say five million miles."

Wow, I bet that even got a wince from Carl Sagan.

"Actually, about 240,000 miles."

"I think these are trick questions. Do you mean as the crow flies?"

(My wife graduated in the top 10 percent of her class. She helped my son with all his calculus assignments. She has perfect skin.)

"OK, one more chance. If you get this answer within a million miles, I'll buy you an expensive candlelight dinner. How far is it around the earth at the equator?"

"Now, that has to be a million miles."

No, but you did just describe Christopher Columbus' recurring nightmare. It's actually 25,000 miles."

"My, it IS a small world ... and I thought that was just a Disney expression. By the way, I won the bet."

(Beautiful figure, very sensitive ...)

"One more chance to redeem yourself. How fast does light travel?"

"Hmmm. Well, you say California is 3,000 miles away and my job is 10 miles from the house and the moon is 240,000 miles from earth and the equator is 25,000 miles around. Keeping that in mind, I'd say light travels 186,000 miles per second.

"I'm absolutely dumbfounded! That is correct. To be exact, it's 186,282 miles per second."

"Oooh, it got faster."

(She has great hair. And is very forgiving. I hope.)