The First Last Minute Detail

It was an afternoon like any other afternoon. That morning the wedding count-down had clicked another tick from six to five. Excitement was oozing from Nicole's pores, and her mind was overflowing with all of the last minute details that needed to be arranged before the big day. Clint was at work, earning a pay check that will soon be deposited into a joint bank account.

Nicole called Clint at work to say good morning--not an uncommon or unappreciated occurrence. They discussed the agenda for the day. She ate breakfast. Nicole called Clint to ask a question of utmost importance, but no one can remember now what that question was. She checked her e-mail inbox and called Clint to ask another question of utmost importance. After attending to the morning menial tasks and after sufficiently waking up, it was time to get to the real business.

The program was the first last minute detail of the day on Nicole's wedding agenda. The task was to add directions to the reception, proof read the text and take it to the friendly neighborhood Kinko's, rather FedEx/Kinko's due to the recent and unfortunate merger, to be printed. Nicole faced the task with more than usual excitement and efficiency. As a staunch perfectionist and procrastinator tasks such as this were sometimes difficult for Nicole to face; however, during the first morning conversation Clint helped to encourage Nicole that it would be wonderful to be able to check the task off of the last minute details list. This encouragement had Nicole feeling very energized.

She began by doing the first thing she always did when proof reading anything--that is, she called her mom into the room. They scoured and scrubbed that list until it shown bright and shiny as a new silver tea kettle. The thought of having polished up a now perfect program was almost intoxicating.

But, suddenly, Nicole's mom pointed out the names printed under "The Wedding Party" section.
"Do you want to use proper names or the names the people normally go by?"

Nicole was stumped. She and Clint had created the list together, but had they really thought about those names? Had they really considered the difference of statement rendered by proper names versus casual names? Had they done something so base--so un-Presbyterian--as to have simply gone with their natural instinct?

This task was far too great. It was a task of opinion more than mere editorial changes. It was a matter to be considered enormous and grave, considering it was something that was not planned to occur--by neither of the two women involved. It came of nowhere; thus, it was of epic, sinkhole-ian, gas-pipe-cracking, substance. Emergency contacts were to be utilized.

Clint failed to answer, he was on lunch break eating a Quizno's sandwhich of epic, sinkhole-ian, gas-pipe-cracking, substance. Emegency contacts were downed.

He called back soon thereafter.

Nicole, all too briefly, explained the situation and asked if Clint wanted his parents' names to be their full names or thier common names. Clint's answer seemed to indicate that he didn't really care, so Nicole inquired further.

Clint responded quickly to this further, seemingly repetitive inquiry feeling as though it was the day that Nicole had decided to ask Clint questions but not listen to answers. Some sort of twisted game. He responded stiffly.

"I don't know what my parents would like more, and I can't call them right now, so you will have to do it."

Clint figured she couldn't manage to not hear that answer.

Nicole got up from her chair to exit the room, for she knew that this was going to become a conversation about more than just programs and did not wish to have this new conversation with her mother as audience.

"I'm not asking what you think your parents would like, I'm asking you what you think about it."

Clint was somewhat perplexed by this statement. Having personally typed the names out just the day before while Nicole looked over his shoulder, Clint figured that it would be understood that what was there on the paper was what he thought about the matter. It was word processing. It is thought on paper. It is the inspired word--a Dead Sea Scroll equivalent to the testament of Clint's thoughts incarnate about the spelling of names on the wedding program. Clint wondered what she could possibly intend in questioning what he thought about it.

So, he told Nicole to leave it like it was.

If Nicole indeed had been playing a game wasn't going to listen even to only one of Clint's answers that day, this was the one, as the program and concern toward it had from her departed questions, answers, and statements ago.

"Why were you being so mean to me."

Fortunately, phrases such as this from his fiancé's mouth tend to short-circuit every last one of the Purkinje fibers of Clint's heart. The automatic remorse and guilt kicked in. This is good. However, the automatic response also kicked in. This is still good, but not yet great. It is that shocking numb that stupifies a person, making them feel bad but not yet compelling them to the custom-fit, thoroughly-processed course of action.

"I felt like you weren't listening to me. I'm sorry."

'I forgive you' were the words that passed through Nicole's lips, but all she could think about was how much her feelings were hurt when Clint was short with her. She couldn't figure out what she did wrong or if she had even done something wrong. She began to cry.

"What's wrong."

"That really hurt my feelings."

Nicole was starting to wonder if they could really finish this conversation with Clint at work.

"Okay."

Nicole was anything but. However, she, nonetheless, signaled the beginning of the ending to the conversation. Clint sat with Nicole on the phone for a minute or two more pathetically striving to initiate some small talk, while the guilt and conviction that had kicked in earlier were still playing marinade to his heart.

The energy that was oozing from her pores only minutes before was blown cool and dry from Nicole. She laid on the bed as still as a forgetten jigsaw puzzle. Even if she desired to move a limb, there was the risk of it triggering further gentle sobbing.

An eternal minute or two passed.

She called Clint back.

Clint was near the phone, expecting this.

He again asked what was wrong in a calmer tone than earlier, having had even just a couple minutes for conviction to re-construct a large portion of his mind and slowly increased the wattage to his heart.

"It seems like sometimes--if you think I'm not listening to you--you kind of feel like you have the right to be short with me."

Clint's tone rapidly changed from passively apologetic to actively seeking forgiveness.

"I don't think that I think that."

Clint paused in thought.

"That would be a very bad way to think, and I don't want to think that."

Nicole appreciated everything about that statement. She appreciated Clint's tone, she appreciated his patience, she appreciated his careful construction of sentences that would be reassure and comfort her. And she was able to take the programs to be printed that very same day.

Cruise Control

It was an afternoon like any other afternoon. The sun was pounding Oklahoma something unmerciful. And, at least in the central area of the state, the wind was to have nothing to do with it. Clint was in his humble abode packing his bookbag with a text concerning intimacy in the Christian marriage and another rather thick book--The Idiot by Dostoevsky. The window-mounted air conditioning unit put forth a cool, guttural harmony like a throat singer of Tuva. Clint set a couple CD's in his computer to burn and proceeded to stuff laundry into a plastic basket. He was heading out west, back home to Elk City for an evening. He needn't pack clothes such a trip--only laundry.

Clint loaded up the Old Grey Mare and headed through Norman to run a few errands before getting on the interstate.

Nicole, all the while, was adrift the north Pacific. Just in and out of sight of the Alaskan coast. Cool, sea breezes would roll across the deck of the Behemoth cruise liner. Nicole would wear her rain jacket and pants to fend against the usual moist. Her location had been determined by rutters and currents for the past six days, putting her in scant communication with her fiancé.

But, some days earlier, she was able to zap an email via a remote site:

...and i find myself an hour later finally saying to myself.... WHAT AM I DOING!!! this is ridiculous because of course i have ended up convincing myself that you and the rest of the world must think the same thing and wondering what you are doing marrying me. i am trying to find the line between not letting myself totally cross over into the self absorbed wallowing dream world and not denying that it is happening. i want to keep every thought captive but so often this just means that i turn to a book or a conversation and ignore it. i am doing much better now (of course there is more to me doing better than just those thoughts.... we can talk about them more later).

i started reading the other marriage book can't think of the name right now. and it helped me to think through some of the things that were on my mind. thank you for helping me through this so much.... i know it is so frustrating but i am so glad that you realize that dealing with it now will lead to so many joys for the future - you will be such a wonderful husband. i love you so much and i miss you a lot (also a sign of these thoughts i think).... i am not wallowing i think i am really learning more and more how to confront these issues. thank you for helping me.

i am missing you.

love,
nicole

Clint was glad to hear of it. He was proud of Nicole's increasing strength in dealing with this issue.

He responded with an email that just informed of his recent mundane doings: work, class, script, and so on.

Somewhere between deposting his paycheck at the bank and driving to friend Kim Perkins' parents' house to drop of a very appreciated vacuum cleaner, Clint realized the air conditioner, even having been granted its typical grace period, was not making the gradual transition into the mode in which it actually produces relatively cool air. He rolled down the two front windows and the back-left window. The back-right window does not work. But, attempted operation of the window does render a rhythmic humming like a throat-singer of Tuva. But, without the cool air, throat-singing--even when emulated by those without throats--did not interest Clint.

Perhaps, he thought, driving fast on the interstate would make the air conditioning work. Basic automobile logic. This hope would hold him until then.

Nicole found a hotel atop the Mountain Ketchikan, and there eventually came another email a day or so:

i was glad to get an e-mail from you but i wished you had said something about everything i told you about my emotional struggles.... it seems like that was the main subject of the last e-mail and you didn't really even mention it. are you mad about it? it seems like you might be. why didn't you send me a longer e-mail? i don't care if it costs money...its not that expensive...
...i had better head back down the mountain. i don't guess i will be able to check my e-mail again today... i don't know... i'm really bummed out and i'm about to cry. i'll probably be able to call you tomorrow night.

i love you,
nicole

Clint wondered at how he managed to let such emotional sentences slide by. Perhaps he succeeded in acknowledging her struggle. Perhaps he even claimed victory at expressing pride towards her thinking through her depressed state. Clearly though, he had missed something.

The air conditioner blasted air that would make space heaters jealous. Clint would later tell his father, in the cool of his parents' home, that he couldn't hold has hand in front of the car console's vent for more than ten seconds before he had to pull his digits away on account of the constant current of very hot air. By the time Clint reached the west side of Oklahoma City, he--with much frustration--shut off the air conditioning. He proceeded to mash the 'stop' button on his CD player, because he could not hear the music through the wall of white noise from the three open windows.

Clint drove by many fields. Some were already hosts to rows of cotton, creating an effect like that of a zoetrope as Clint sped past, except there was no cartoon clown juggling on the other side. Perhaps, he was the spectated clown in his oven on wheels.

Some fields were awaiting the sowing of seeds. There sat a farmer in his air conditioned cab on his tractor, turning the earth. The utter lack of wind and the plowing of such parched soil created a rust-colored, motionless cloud in the wake of the big green machine. It was as though there was an invisible tree and on which a fine red dust had settled.

Some fields still had a crop of wheat that had no hopes of being harvested. It was there to die in whatever way the climate pleased, breaking the crop back into the ground and, thus, enriching the soil for the next crop.

Timestamped a minute or two after Nicole's previous email, in came another:

i shouldn't have sent you that stuff the other day. i knew there was no good way for you to respond to it right now.

sorry,
nicole

Clint was overcome with a feeling of immasculinity. Truly, he felt he had failed. He appreciated the graciousness in Nicole's e-mail, but it made him realize he was allowing something to happen. The hardening of a woman happens in many, many small steps, and Clint felt as though he had made Nicole to accept a gradient of the color yellow to no longer be considered yellow on account of his insistence of playing host to his jaundice.

Tired of sweating on his clothes and his clothes then sweating back on him, Clint decided it was time for drastic measures. He decided it was time to remove not only the standard button-up long-sleeve shirt but the white undershirt all the same. This triggered a thought process.

Earlier that morning, Clint was in the midst of his summer Spanish class. He had avoided completing his foreign language requirement until his last year of full-time college. This did lead to the discovery of the community college experience. Clint would highly recommend it to most of his peers. Granted, the Spanish classes he had taken were quite easy and this is indeed a point of recommendation in his mind, but there is also an interesting sense of community and care. Many would find it derogatory to relate it to a high school class, but there was that sense of community.

Furthermore, there are the characters. Last semester there was a middle-aged man, Tom, who struggled terribly with the basics of the language, and, paradoxically, the most comely of the young women in the class would sit next to him every session. One day toward the end of the semester, Tom brought a stack of pizzas to class.

Upon happily snatching a slice, Clint inquired,"To what do we owe such celebration?"

"I was elected the mayor of Marlow today."

There was the friendly, 30-some-year-old Mormon fellow named Tracy, who knew Spanish quite fluently from his two-year mandatory mission trip to Chilé. Clint sat next to him.

This semester, there was Thomas. He had recently served in Iraq, and he had a baseball cap that made this know by stating "I SURVIVED IRAQ." He had some Hispanic heritage from which he extracted enough knowledge to be the superstar of the class and, well, teacher's pet--mind the previous high school allusion. He talked about motorcycles a lot.

But, this morning, Thomas let loose some impressive information. Apparently, sometime in his younger years, he was quite the daredevil on the interstate. He boasted of fantastical situations in which he would open the passenger door and put his shoed feet on the pavement speeding by. This, he referred to as "skiing." There was also the stunt in which he would stand on the console betwixt the front seats with his torso jutting through the moon roof and steer with his left foot--on the interstate.

He spoke of the configuration of the interior of his automobile that accounted for maximum havoc. The two front seats were reclined as far back as possible. This allowed him to swap seats with his comrade without letting the speedometer drop a mark.

"You gotta have perfect alignment."

Furthermore, the back seats were pulled open to reveal the contents of the trunk. While driving he could then crawl over the seats and retrieve beverages from the trunk--again, on the interstate.

Clint thought it would be far more appropriate that Thomas' hat should rather state "I SURVIVED OWNING A CAR." Clint also thought everyone else should have hats that stated "I SURVIVED DRIVING IN THE SAME REGION AS THOMAS."

Clint felt perfectly reasonable pulling the mild stunt of removing his sticky shirts.

It did help, but he was also rendered that shirtless, white guy driving a near-primer-grey hoopty with all the still-functional windows down. The object of the cotton-row zoetrope was coming to completion.

The Old Grey Mare was soon approaching Weatherford, one of Clint's new favorite stretches of western Oklahoma interstate. Over the past several months, Florida Power & Light [a subsidiary of FPL Group] had constructed seventy-one towering wind turbines that surround the city--a truly fantastic sight. It is almost otherworldly. Where there wasn't wind only sixty miles to the east, the turbines made it clear there was now plenty.

Clint thought about the statement it would make if the whole wind power endeavor fell through and the seventy-one wind turbines were left standing for decades thereafter. It would far surpass any intentional work of Christo. Of all the monuments that exist on account man acheiving the toppest tops, this would be the one that stood as a monument to one of the mistakes of the race. But, it wouldn't necessarily be so sobering as a holocaust museum. A reminder that would be pretty, unique, awe-inspiring, relatively-sobering, and possible of inducing laughter towards human endeavors--past, present, and future. Left to their demise, the turbines would, one by one, collapse over the decades, having provided a certain nourishment for generations.

He wanted to share his thoughts with Nicole.

And that is when the needed synapses finally fired. Clint missed Nicole a lot. She would have held the wheel as he removed his shirt. She would have complained about the heat, and he would have consoled her--forcing him to not complain about it himself. She would have conversely consoled him in regards to the lack of music. They would have yelled at each other, but only to be heard over the wind noise in order to discuss the abstract statements in the wind turbines.

When he reached his destination, Clint shred his sense of outward duty and focused inward long enough to compose not another email letting Nicole know how his day went nor an email that acknowledged forthright his missing her nor an email that merely stated he was proud of her dealing with issues while away. Rather, he composed--as best he could--something poetic, his emotions connected and incarnate spilling out on the monitor aglow in his old, darkened bedroom that had since become the office of his retired father.

Grape Tomatoes

It was an afternoon just like any other afternoon. Clint was somewhat groggy having departed prematurely from Christ the King Presbyterian Church to take a strong dose of allergy medicine. Clint, an allergy sufferer to the point of a medication connoiseur, is in tune with his allergic tendencies enough to be able to forecast an attack at the slightest sniffle. Forced to skip a number of phrases during the corporate confession on account of an itchy nose, Clint informed Nicole of his ailment, and briskly made his way out the back of the church during the last verse of the hymn of the month--an old hymn sang to a new tune. Clint was glad he was able to last through confession at least.

Clint cranked the air conditioning to full-on for the drive home, as he believes the blasting of cold air on his face slows the invading allergens for at least a time. Clint also beleives he is allergic to the sound of a lawn being mown. Undoubtedly, equally poppycock.

Anyhow, he arrived at his new apartment, a 1940-50's-style abode rented out by the University of Oklahoma. It was a strikingly good deal considering all bills were paid for (including the handsome T-1 internet connection), and helped put Clint's mind at ease in regard to finding a place for his soon-to-be wife to rest her blue-eyed, little head. He promptly made his way through the cardboard-box-filled home to the scant bathroom. He pulled the mirror's reflection toward himself, found the allergy medicine box, pushed a pill through the foil backing, gathered a half-mouthful of water, popped the pill, and swallowed.

Whenever he is to take such a dosage, he insists that the medication is only truly activated if one follows it with a nap--referred to as an "allergy nap." Like wine-tasting, there is a process in the medicating of allergies that is particular but, nonethless, intended to be enjoyed. So, Clint retired to the bed.

Meanwhile, though concerned about Clint's allergic state Nicole realized, having witnessed quite a number of these allergy attacks, there was nothing she could do for him and stayed through the remainder of the Sunday morning service. After doing some desirable socializing Nicole slipped out of church before partaking of the routine fellowship meal so that she could make her way back to her suffering fiance and offer any support possible. Nicole called Clint on her cell phone on the way to check on his allergy status.

Clint was awakened by a sound still unfamiliar to him--the ringing of a cordless phone received at a recent wedding shower. Nicole was calling on her way home. Clint cracked open the back door so that Nicole could enter, as he believes the door locks upon being closed--a mechanism that merely requires a flip of the fingers to no longer automatically lock. He returned to the bed in hopes of grabbing a wink of shallow sleep before Nicole arrived. He did so, and Nicole arrived.

The agenda was quickly discussed and set. Go out for lunch, and then to Wal-Mart with a list of items for the new apartment.

The two made their way out to Clint's car through the apartment's grassy area to the dirt-and-gravel parking lot. An enormous cottonwood (what other kind is there) tree loomed large over the south side of the apartment's lawn. Anything but seedless, the cottonwood rendered the entire grassy area into a Gargantuan dryer's lint filter.

"It's no wonder my allergies are so bad," stated Clint observing the cottonwood seeds, both airborne and grounded.

He then unlocked the doors of his late-1980's model Grand Marquis with an oddly-intentional color of grey a few shades darker than that of primer. Simultaneously, Clint and Nicole experienced the burst of hot air that smelled of the cars of grandmothers who wear large sunglasses with a slight fade tint from top to bottom and have crowded, jangly keychains with a Native American symbol of some sort dwarfing the neighboring keys.

They decided to take Nicole's car. It cools off much faster and reeks of a more recent, younger style of success.

"I can never decide where to eat," said Nicole from the passenger seat as the car sat at a stop sign. "Let's talk genre. What is on the way to Wal-Mart?"

"We can go to either the west-side Wal-Mart or the east-side Wal-Mart, so pretty much everything is on the way," said Clint.

"Okay... Well... I want fast but not too fast."

Clint thought for a moment, dazed and feeling about ten feet above himself from the lingering medication.

"How about Johnnies?" asked Clint.

"Ooh, that sounds good."

The couple enjoyed their Johnnies burgers.

Nicole told Clint about all that had happened at church. She went over ther sermon by reading from the Sharpé-scented notes she had taken. She told of her conversations after church.

Clint and Nicole drifted through Wal-Mart picking up items on and off their list: black duct tape, white duct tape, tape measure, electrical tape, meat, grape tomatoes, milk, tissues, pasta, and so on. They saw many interesting people, and said "hello" to none of them.

Upon checking off all the items from their list and being satisfied with the rounding up of things not on the list, they trekked to the cashier-side of the store. The two were easily lulled into the seeming convenience of the self-checkout. An oasis in the desert of people to not say "hello" too.

Clint scanned, and Nicole bagged. The feminine machine insisted that Nicole was bagging incorrectly. This annoyed Clint. He formed an alliance with the cashier robot, he played the silent, annoyed role, and the she-bot played the nagging yet polite role. Clint continued scanning.

He incorrectly picked up a plastic container of the grape tomatoes from the cart, opening it wide and to the side. Hell broke loose somewhere between the first and nineteenth grape tomato striking the tiles. They tumbled end-over-end, side-over-side, and end-over-side, in all directions. Clint, an already relatively apathetic young man and, furthermore, groggy from the allergy medicine, just watched the calamity unfold.

"I just spilled the grape tomatoes."

"PLEASE PLACE THE SCANNED ITEM IN THE BAG."

"What?"

"I just spilled the grape tomatoes... all over the floor."

"Oh... well, we can get some more."

"That's not what I am concerned about."

Clint, deciding not to yet break protocol despite the fact that protocol had been broken, continued scanning items. Nicole caught up with the bagging enough to pick up the grape tomatoes. Nicole gathered the rogue vegetables (although some may call them fruits) in her hand, and then she decided to get a bag, despite there being a trash can not but an arm's length from ground zero.

"How can she possibly not see that trash can?" thought an irrationally irritated Clint.

Clint continued scanning and bagging. He was handling both tasks without error. Perfect fodder for Clint's situational self-righteoussness.

Nicole finished the task of cleaning up the grape tomatoes. By this point, she had grown impatient of both the situation and Clint's silence.

"Do you want some more grape tomatoes?" asked Nicole.

"No. It's okay."

"They're just right over there."

"If you want to."

"It would only take a second," said Nicole, fast growing tired of the indecision.

Clint sighed, annoyed at her incessant insisting.

"Sure."

Off went Nicole to fetch another batch of grape tomatoes, while Clint continued scanning items.

"ITEM DOES NOT MATCH CORRECT WEIGHT," nagged the fem-bot just as Nicole was out of earshot.

The spilling of the grape tomatoes was the first wave of Hell's march out of the depths. Then came the second.

"PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE ITEMS FROM THE BAG UNTIL ITEM HAS CLEARED."

"PLACE THE SCANNED ITEM IN THE BAG."

"ASSISTANCE IS ON THE WAY."

Failure was established. Self-righteousness checked severe.

A faceless (nameless if wasn't for the badge) employee in a blue smock with a yellow, happy face graphic appeared out of nowhere and held a piece of plastic up to the machine to be scanned. Clint could have been taking advantage of the system, and it would have made no difference to the employee. She was paid by the hour, and it's the machine she was serving that most threatened her job security.

Clint finished scanning and bagging. He looked up, and noticed that Nicole was not yet back. He squinted his eyes toward the produce section. There was Nicole's skinny frame hovering over the grape tomatoes, looking into each package of dozens of grape tomatoes trying to determine which one had the largest quantity of aesthetically healthy grape tomatoes.

Clint just stood there, watching.

"SCAN NEXT ITEM, OR, IF YOU ARE FINISHED, SELECT 'FINISH AND PAY.'"

The people in the queue behind Clint looked at him, trying to understand what he was doing gazing into the produce section.

"SCAN NEXT ITEM, OR, IF YOU ARE FINISHED, SELECT 'FINISH AND PAY.'"

Clint tapped his credit card on the stainless steel lining of the conveyor belt. Nicole started back.

"SCAN NEXT ITEM, OR, IF YOU ARE FINISHED, SELECT 'FINISH AND PAY.'"

Nicole was close enough to hear the cashier bot. She handed off the grape tomatoes, and they were promptly scanned. Clint set the package of the grape tomatoes on the scale's bed, bypassing placing it in a sack of its own. Clint and Nicole stood there for a couple, long seconds waiting to hear the fem-bot grant its approval.

The couple remained silent as they departed from Wal-Mart and loaded the groceries into the car. They sat down in the front seats and Clint cranked the air conditioning and aimed it at his face. He thought for a moment.

"I'm sorry I'm being moody. It's just that the grape tomatoes fell out of the packaging and I am allergy mediciney."

Nicole laughed and forgave him.

Escondido Enemigos

It was an evening like any other evening. Clint had made his way up to Edmond in the afternoon to visit Nicole, his fiancé, and help gather addresses for wedding invitations. And that is exactly what came to pass.

Having completed such arduous tasks, their early-twenty-someone bellies were all a-grumble--Nicole's merely a-mumble. The central Oklahoma phenomenon embodied as a Tex-Mex restaurante with a recent stint of mitosis beckoned the young lovers.

The list for available seating filled the hostesses glowing LCD screen with names like Ingrid, Gerber, Chavez, and upon Clint and Nicole's arrival, "Elliott." Clint usues his middle name in such situations, because he always has to repeat himself when he uses his first or last name.

"The wait will be about 35 minutes."

So, they stood and chatted in the summer evening. The kind in which it feels like one's innards and skin are the same temperature as the air surrounding one's self. Soon, they were able to sit at a bench.

Honeymoon destinations were discussed. Nicole and her father had recently brainstormed some possible locations: Vancouver, Victoria Island, Seattle, Maine, and so on. She shared these with Clint. Clint thought these were good locations. But, he failed to voice this thought.

"Well, when you think about it, all of these locations are pretty much the same," said Clint.

There was a pause.

He continued,"Every location deals with the coasts. You pretty much have the option of either island or land."

Another pause.

"Right?"

Nicole's demeanor underwent a change upon Clint stating that all the locations are pretty much the same.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"I don't want to make the decision... for multiple reasons. I don't mind giving input."

"Well, okay... Do you think I am trying to make you make the decision right now?"

"I feel like I am going to have to make the decision."

"Okay... but, do you think that, right now, I am trying to make us--make you--make the decision?"

"No."

"All I am trying to do is ask if you like the idea of staying on an island or land."

"But, I don't have any more input... you aren't giving any locations."

"No," stated boldy, cutting off Nicole. "That's not what happened. I'm just trying to get your input on whether you like the island or the land. Geographically."

"But, you don't like any of the locations."

"Oh."

Everything lined up at that moment.

"I like the locations."

A few minutes passed under a lighter mood having discovered the problem. But, it wasn't long before growling of their bellies again spread to their mouths.

Clint was observing a crowd of people that had just exited the Escondido. One of the members of the crowd, a teenage girl wearing a floral dress over her jeans, had an interesting voice. Furthermore, upon addressing her comrade, she spoke her strange timbre while staring at the other's neck in an insecure manner. Clint found this amusing and nudged Nicole to take a gander for herself.

Nicole was observing an older couple who appeared to be on a date. The gentleman would rarely look at the lady; whereas, the lady was nearly at all times looking at the gentleman. This sparked a train of thought in Nicole.

"Why is it that men are supposed to be such visual creatures, but, in the midst of conversation, men rarely look at the other involved?" Nicole inquired to Clint. "Right?"

"I don't know."

Clint continued looking at the group with the girl with the funny voice. There was now a woman with an incredibly boney jaw that captivated him.

"Women are almost always looking at who they are talking to... Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know."

The familiar pause rears its head.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" moaned Nicole.

"I am."

"No you aren't. You just keep saying 'I don't know.'"

"I honestly don't know why men do that."

"Well, you could still talk to me about it."

"Are you hungry?" inquired Clint, hinting at hunger as a possible cause of the perceived moodiness.

"I am just trying to figure out what you think."

"Okay... Well, I am looking at this group of people while I talk to you. I am not looking at you. Does 'visual' equate to just the physical things or does it also include abstract ideas?"

"So, men are attaching the conversation to the ideas and content of the conversation more, and women attach the conversation to who they are talking to... I am hungry."

"Yeah... I know you are. Me too."

Later, while Clint and Nicole devoured the Tex-Mex vittles that kept appearing before them via the speedy hands of the silent Mexican staff, Clint interjected with what he thought a profound thought.

"We should make a blog about our arguments."

Nicole laughed.

"That would be good."

So the couple discussed the idea. They decided that the names of other people--should they ever be included in any arguments--must be replaced with cliché African-American names. They also deceided that arguments that are only truly over and forgiven may be published. They then realized their need to close the evenings arguements with apologies.