The wife has recently opened up a show here in Seattle where she makes a brief appearance at the top of the play and then isn't really seen until act two, so she was looking for a hobby that she could try out as she whiled away the free time backstage. (If you're interested, Seattleites, go check out The Ritz at Re-bar. It's funny!)

She tried bearbaiting for a while, but you know what? Bears, while hilarious to see cruelly killed, are in fact damned expensive. So that was out. She tried primal scream therapy for a short time, but it turns out that bone-chilling howls of agony from backstage tend to unnerve audiences, so that didn't work out either; she also tried an alternative, primal sigh therapy, but it wasn't that fulfilling, nor was primal belching. Musical autopsies didn't even last for two days, as we quickly ran out of fresh corpses, and the noise factor became an issue again when audiences complained about the racket made when she joyfully cracked a chest and played the ribs like a marimba.

And then a friend turned her on to . . . knitting. Which is possibly the most disturbing one yet, at least from my perspective. Because while I know it works for her situation--it's quiet, productive, passes the time, etc.--it is really sort of disturbing to be sitting around the home, I'm watching SportsCenter, and then to look over at my wife . . . knitting. My breathing becomes shallow, and the adrenal glands go juicy. Oh, God! I think. My wife is seventy years old! Because, I'm sorry, I do associate knitting with the elderly. Inept scarves and ill-fitting scratchy sweaters and all that, those lovingly-made gifts that have ruined countless Christmases for children.

"Oh, isn't that adorable! Skot, thank your gramma for the shapeless, abrasive sweater!"

"But I wanted Micronauts! I hate you, gramma! All the other kids are going to laugh at me and make me lick the toilet seats if I wear this!"

"They do that anyway, son," my mother would say in reassuring tones. "But for being such a little turd on Christmas, we're going to burn all your good gifts."

"Ahahahahahahaha!" my grandmother would cackle at me then. "Fucked you pretty good again, didn't I, ya little smartass?" She would rattle the ice cubes in her empty bourbon glass wrathfully and lower her voice to a hiss. "Knitcha a coffin next year, ya lousy little pisser."

Maybe we shouldn't talk about Christmas. Sorry . . . took a little trip down memory lane. What were we talking about?

Oh! Right! Knitting. Yeah, anyway, so the wife does this now, and I enjoy ribbing her about it. "Can you knit more quietly?" I said to her tonight, mock-serious. She made a face at me, and then pretended to "knit quietly," which was kind of funny in a way that I can't really describe.

Later, still knitting, she said mildly, out of the blue, "I'm making you a cock warmer." I laughed, and took a look at her work so far. "You've seen my cock, right? I think you're done." She laughed. I looked again. "Seriously, I think you've made three of them," I said. She held up the yarnwork. "Nuh uh!" she exclaimed. (You see why I love this woman?)

After a bit, she put her knitting down to take a break. I turned to her. "Hey," I said, "get back to work. My cock is cold."

And so goes another evening in a happy marriage.