Couplehood by Paul Reiser

dog?”
    “Fine.”
    “Does the dog miss me?”
    “Been crying since you left.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Seriously? The dog has no idea you’re gone. Thinks you’re in the shower … Would you like to know how
I
am?”
    “Yes, yes, I was just going to ask. I swear—that was my next question. How are
you?”
    T hose miles between you can really change things. You forget how to talk.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Nothing. Why?”
    “You sound distracted.”
    “I’m not distracted.”
    “You watching TV?”
    “No.”
    “So who’s that talking?”
    “You can
hear
that?”
    “Yes, I can hear that. What are you watching, ‘The Jeffersons’?”
    “I’m not watching—it’s just on.”
    “You’re watching The Jeffersons’ while you’re talking to me?”
    “I’m not watching it. I’ll shut it off. Wait.… Okay, there you see, I shut it off. No more ‘Jeffersons.’ ”
    Then you’re quiet. Then you tell her which episode of “The Jeffersons” you were watching. She saw that one. Actually liked it. You talk about Sherman Hemsley. Then you talk about what you used to watch when you came home from school as a kid. What you used to eat
while
you watched TV as a kid. You compare the merits of different snacking foods. Then one of you has the presence of mind to pull the plug.
    “What are we doing here? We’re talking long distance about Pepperidge Farm cookies.”
    You both say, “Good night.”
    You both say, “I love you.”
    You both point out how the other one sounds phony.
    You sit and say nothing for a while.
    You both promise to be better at this tomorrow and swear to never go away again.
    Then you hang up, and one hour later you wake her up to find out how “The Jeffersons” ended.

Dear
Japan,
Stop!!!
    A t some point, my wife and I got ourselves on every mailing list in the free world. All you have to do is buy
one
distinctly dumb product you don’t need, and everyone with a catalogue hears about it. “Hi! We understand you don’t care
what
you spend money on anymore. We have just the catalogue for you.”
    I like the Combination Products. Things that you probably already have, but not in this particular combination.
    “It’s a sweater vest
and
a bottle opener.”
    “It’s a hot beverage thermos
and
a snorkeling mask!”
    And, of course, if you look at the pictures longenough, you start thinking, “Well, you know, we
could
use that. With a thermos/snorkel mask, we wouldn’t have to come up for coffee anymore. We could snorkel all day and never come up!”
    Then they combine things that not only
shouldn’t
be together, there’s no way they
could
be. “It’s a cassette rack
and
a Doberman pinscher!”
    How could that be?
    “It’s a rain bonnet, but it’s also your parents.”
    How could that be?! I just saw my parents. They weren’t a rain bonnet.
    T hey’re doing it with stores now, too. Stores are branching out into areas where they have no business doing business. “Beauty Supplies and Cheese,” “Massage Tables and Skate Repairs.”
    There’s a cabinet store in my neighborhood that sells bookcases, shelves, and pineapple juice. Apparently, that was where they felt they were lacking—the juice market.
    “Look, we already have a hammer and a flat surface; go get a pineapple, we’ll make juice.”
    Even the fast-food places—everybody’s trying to do everyone else’s job. Hamburger places have pizza, pizza places have salad bars, chicken places have croissants, bakeries are developing film—everybody’s so desperate:“Don’t go anywhere else. We’ll get you whatever you want—just stay here!”
    B ut the catalogues are dangerous because they seduce you with the pictures you can peruse at your leisure.
    Victoria’s Secret is big trouble. That’s a good-looking catalogue. That one I don’t throw out so fast.
    In all fairness, it’s
more
than a catalogue. It’s a lovely story, a novella, really, that I keep by my bedside, and every night I read a few pages