Battle of Mountain Wits

            Liz got online today and read through the list of symptoms of Alzheimers, just to be safe. 

She’s appears okay with it, ‘cause she doesn’t have that one symptom yet. 

(I kid.) 

            I went storming into the living room shouting, “Google has now canceled my account twice for no good reason at all!”

            And what did she say to this? 

What did my lovely lady take from this and fire back? 

“What for?” she asked.

            So rather than get mad, I took a lesson learned from the Naked Truth incident, fight back with humor, I answered, “Mountaineering.”

            “What?”

            “Yeah.  I was mountaineering without a license.  You can’t do that in Germany.” 

            It wasn’t an overnight deal, it took a tremendous and concentrated effort on our part, but this is how we try to fight.  When we get mad at each other.

            She was irritated with me for being a smart ass.  So, she played along.  Pretended like she wasn’t interested.  Casually flipping through a magazine.  “When did you go to Germany?” 

            “Last week.  I was doing some secret recognizance work for Yahoo.”

            “On a mountain?”

            “Yeah.  Well, sort of.  It was a hidden lair within the mountain.  The Google agents picked me up on my way back down.”

            She set her magazine aside for this one.  Must’ve been important, I could tell already. 

            “I never understood that,” she said.  “Why do secret lairs always have to be so obsolete?”

            “Pardon?”

            “What?”

            I shook my head, motioned for her to carry on.  It’s quicker that way. 

            “What was I saying?”

            “Secret lairs.”

            “Yeah!  I mean, seems like they spend a lot of time and money going all the way out to a mountain in Germany just to conduct business.  They want remote, tell ‘em to bring their gear to Olney.  It’s gotta be cheaper.  Doesn’t it?  They could use one of the empty stores at the mall.  Ya know, for their headquarters.”

            “You just don’t understand the world of industrial espionage, hun.  And neither do I.  And that’s why we’re safe.  Big Brother is listening right now, and he’s bored stupid.  That’s how we will beat him.”

            “What?”

            “This conversation is senseless,” I said.  And then she had the audacity, the unmitigated gull, to say, “This conversation became senseless whenever you joined in.”  It was a right hook to the jaw.  She snuck it in. 

            My mouth flopped open, eyes wide and brow curled, I forgot to breathe there for a stint. 

I stormed off. 

She won this battle. 

But, the war rages on.