Silence

Published 9:58 am Thursday, July 10, 2025

Hello darkness, my old friend.

That song came to my mind this past Wednesday when my lovely wife came home from her doctor’s appointment. She was told she had laryngitis.

Her doctor advised her not to speak a word for the next four days.

No talking for 96 hours. That’s a long time, Art Garfunkel.

On the first day, we attempted to communicate solely through hand signals. That went over really well.

She would point at her arm, wanting to know the time. I interpreted it as meaning she got bitten by a spider.

Then there was the finger against her nose. She meant I smell something. I thought she meant ‘I’ve got a big booger.’

The sign language thing was not working. We had to find another way to communicate.

So, I gave her an electronic tablet that she could use to write messages on. She forgot I can’t see very well. She would write, ‘I need a napkin.’ From across the room, I saw it as ‘My knee is snapping.’

A piece of advice: don’t ever get in an argument with someone who’s been told not to talk. It’s a sure way to wind up living on the street the next day with nothing but a box of frozen pizza rolls.

Someone suggested that she should download this nifty speech app to her phone that allows you to type out a message, and then you can choose a voice to say it.

They had a lot of famous people on there.

She chose Snoop Dog, thinking that would be funny. Not so much.

It’s hard to listen to Snoop Dog tell you to take out the trash.

“Oye boy… run that jizzle down to the chanizzle.”

I misinterpreted her telling me to turn down the thermostat as ‘let’s go do a drive-by, homey.’ And please bring me a glass of tea sounded like, ‘yo, gee, let’s dizzle some of that sweet kanizzle.’

And don’t even get me started on lip reading. Five minutes of that and I’d wind up on a boat in the South China Sea with nothing to eat but a can of deviled ham.

Several people laughed when I told them she couldn’t talk for four days.

“You’ll finally get the last word.”

My therapist (yes, I have a therapist because I want to at least appear normal) said I should go out and talk to my friends.

Friends? What friends.

My wife is my friend. My best friend. He says that’s not healthy.

Well, I don’t want to have some vapid conversation about the weather or if I think LeBron should get a Nobel Peace Prize with the guy who sells me compost.

I want to talk to her. Just her.

We start our day lounging around in bed and talking about the weather. We talk about the news while eating breakfast together. We talk about work in the office we share. And my favorite: we watch TV every night and compete to guess who the murderer is in the show we’re watching. She says it’s the third ex-husband. I say it’s the guy who cleans the pool. Usually, it’s the florist’s second cousin who does cat taxidermy.

She is my confidant. My confessor. My biggest cheerleader.

She is the only person whom I have to talk to every day to feel alive.

And for the next four days, I can’t.

Unless I want to read lips, hand signals, or 8 pt type from across the room.

That’s exactly how I wound up on this llama in Peru searching for a Cabbage Patch doll.