Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Free Write

During a recent argument with my wife, there are many, I jokingly told her “I’m going to take you down.” She responded with, “Well, I’ll take you all the way down, down to Chinatown!” Not wanting to lose yet another argument, making my record 0 to 497 for our three and a half years of marriage, I came back with “Oh yeah? Well I’ll take you to downtown Chinatown.” She did not care for this reply.


Immediately my wife, Lindsey, fumed “There is no such place as downtown Chinatown!”


“Sure there is,” I said. “It’s like Portland. There’s the city of Portland and then there’s downtown Portland. Same thing.” She cared for this explanation less than she did my informing her of the existence of downtown Chinatown.


“It is not the same thing!” She punched me in the arm and left the room, effectively ending our argument. Or so she thought.


Recently we were at Circuit City looking at LCD televisions when I happened upon a gem of 1980s filmmaking “Big Trouble in Little China.” It was only six dollars. Not knowing my true motives for wanting the movie Lindsey let me buy it. The ambush came that night while we watched it.


As the film progressed in the haphazard manner befitting a movie made in the 80s I exclaimed, “There it is! There it is!”


“What? What’s there?”


I turned, smiling, “Proof positive of the existence of downtown Chinatown.”


My arm has been burning for the past two days where she punched me, yelling, “There is no such place as downtown Chinatown!”


I don’t know why I’m compelled to do or say the things that anger her so much. I can only say you have to see her, fuming, almost rabid, insisting that something as meaningless as downtown Chinatown cannot exist, to understand. If you saw it, you’d probably join in.

2 comments:

Robert (Bob) Stewart said...

Perhaps you ought to go ride the MAX there. It announces Downtown Chinatown right over the speakers.

Kylie Jo said...

Haha, I like doing those things to people too, especially those closest to me. It's just so fun for some reason. Good flow, easy read.