WIFESPEAK: When your spouse steals your jokes, and your fashion sense

We have walked into a function looking like we custom-tailored a uniform, simply because we wore similar-coloured clothes. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH

What you need to know:

  • The other day, we walked into a dinner function looking as if we had custom-tailored a uniform. We had both chosen light brown suede jackets.
  • But we only realised we looked like we were in uniform when the chaket jokes were thrown our way.
  • When guests ask about the books in the sitting room, he announces: “We are pursuing a Master’s degree.”
  • Do you have feedback on this story? E-mail: [email protected]

You don’t realise how much you influence each other, until you sit through a joke he is telling, which sounds eerily familiar, then you realise it was you who had told it to him five years back.

He had then thought that it was smart and hilarious. He repeated it to his friends and colleagues. And now he was telling it to you. For the umpteenth time, you sit through that account of his childhood adventure, where he ends sliding down the roof, into his dad’s arms, for the spanking that he had tried to escape. You still chuckle at the picture of it all.

“Yeah. I know the joke,” you say, hoping he will stop retelling it. He laughs and continues for the punchline.

They say a good wife laughs at her husband’s jokes. What pressure is that?

I read this book about a carnivorous community in New Guinea back in the earlier centuries. The phrase, ‘fatten for slaughter with friendship’ struck me. I shared this with hubby.

Next thing I knew, he was throwing the phrase around, not necessarily in the most apt manner. He attempted to explain to me about the origin of the phrase and I got the book out and reminded him that he was yet to read the full story.

It might sound immature, but then, many couple’s arguments are immature, to say the least. We have argued about who first introduced a brand of soap to the bathroom, or who has highly influenced the children to become fluent communicators. And of course, whose joke it was to begin with.

The other day, we walked into a dinner function looking as if we had custom-tailored a uniform. We had both chosen light brown suede jackets. But we only realised we looked like we were in uniform when the chaket jokes were thrown our way.

“You seem to have adopted my love of brown jackets,” I said afterwards.

“What do you mean? You are the one who took after me,” he replied.

“You are kidding me. I have, like, four of them and always wear one or the other.”

“I have had mine for many years, you must have liked it so much until you adopted similar ones.”

WHEN TWO BECOME ONE

You know someone took the two-become-one phrase literary – when guests ask about the books in the sitting room, he announces: “We are pursuing a Master’s degree.”

He can even expound on some theories I learned because I came home all awed and shared this or the other theory about human behaviour.

All this would be awesome if only he was not selective in his recall. He will not remember why orange is my favourite colour, yet there is always green around.

“The green is to tone down the orange,” I will explain.

Then three months later, he will come home with a green kitenge, smiling he will say: “I know you like green.”

“Did they have any in orange?” I ask.

“Yea, I guess. Why?”

“Never mind.”

I have concluded that after some years of marriage, a couple becomes more like siblings, replaying their earlier sibling rivalry on each other.

“Mum, he copied me!”

“I didn’t! She copied me!”

“No, you copied me. I did it first!”

I chuckle when our children accuse each other and come to make the animated reports to us.

I always wonder: where did they pick that from?

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Do you have feedback on this story? E-mail: [email protected]