Most married couples develop dinnertime rituals over the years. And in this one respect, the wife and I
are like most couples.
We enjoy a meal of some type of cooked animal, a healthy vegetable, a hearty helping of tater-tots and a
glass of Merlot. (Which pairs quite nicely with Tater Tots FYI.) Following dinner I read the newspaper
and the wife works on the crossword puzzle.
“Honey,” she will interrupt my reading, “what is another word for pulchritudinous?” (Pull-kri-tood’-n-ous
for you phonetic freaks out there.)
“Pulchritudinous?” I tried to say in utter disbelief. “OK, somebody is messing with you. That’s not a
real word. Real words can’t have more than three syllables or they become pre-ten-tious.”
“It’s a real word, dear, or it wouldn’t be in a crossword puzzle.”
“How many letters in the puzzle for that clue?” I asked.
“Three.”
“Nah-uh!”
“Yes huh … only three letters and the first one is H and the last one is ‘T’.”
Getting rather upset because I had totally forgotten what newspaper article I was reading (but it was
probably my column) I said, “Why in the world would anyone use a freaking long word like that when you
could use a simple three letter word instead? Who makes up these puzzles, the menses club?”
“I think you mean Mensa, dear, the international fellowship of people with extremely high IQs, not the
monthly feminine cycle of life.”
“Whatever! I hate it when super smart people make me feel dumb.”
“Well, that explains your argument with the Girl Scout trying to sell you s’more cookies at our front
door last week.”
“Hey I’m sorry, but s’more is not a legitimate contraction for ‘some more.’ For the love of God what are
they teaching these kids?”
“This from the guy who confuses Mensa and menses.”
Then trying to diffuse the conversation the wife said, “Honey, settle down! All I wanted was a three
letter word for pulchritudinous that starts with H and ends with T.”
“Fine,” I said calming down. “But for the record I also refused to buy Samoas from the girl scout because
they weren’t actually made on the island of Samoa in the South Pacific.”
“That was about the time that little girl ran screaming to the next house.”
“Look,” I said, “obviously neither one of us knows what pulchritudinous means, so I am going to Google
it.”
“NOOOOO!” the wife said. “That’s cheating!”
“I don’t care!” I said swiping my phone for the definition. “OMG. This describes you to a T. You are a
very pulchritudinous person. And the letter you are looking for is O.”
“O…H-O-T…is this a reference to hot flashes? Because I’m not cool being called hot in that context.”
“No, dear. Pulchritudinous means a person of great physical beauty …which, of course, you are.”
“Oh honey, you’re so sweet. Here, have another glass of Merlot and some more Tater Tots, they pair well
together.”
“I know,” I said feeling smarter than the folks at menses.