copyright Marie Gail Stratford
“You’re awful,” I said to my wife in the passenger seat.
“You’re boring,” she shot back.
“Cretin,” I said.
Ten minutes later we were both in tears.
“You,” I shouted, “are an awful, bitchy, crass, dead-eyed, elephant-eared, flappy-lipped, gout-ridden, horse-faced, idiotic, jackass of a keg-guzzling, low-browed, monkey-brained, ninny-hammered, oafish, pachydermal, quarter-ton, rank-odored, skanky, troll-footed, uncultured, vacuous, wasp-hearted, xenophobic, yellow-bellied zombie!”
My wife was pounding the dashboard. “Stop!” she cried. “I can’t breathe.” She wiped her eyes, still laughing. “How much farther?”
“Still 315 miles to Dodge City.”
“Another game?”
The Kansas miles rolled slowly by, each exactly like the previous.
The Green-Walled Tower 