Pickles by Brian Crane for March 16, 2018

That means I’m the most important man in the world to my wife.

Bickering is the way some folks communicate.

I see this all the time in the comics…

Yes, Opal and Earl bicker, but they also make comedic jabs….

and they both get it. They know it’s funny.

If you’re trying to create humor, especialy in a few panels, an always sweet, soft-spoken spouse is just not as funny as a flippant or acerbic one….

so you pick a couple who are sarcastic, or love to get in jokes and digs.

It doesn’t mean a lack of affection…..

just that their way of communicating, which might seem very funny in real life, doesn’t always translate, for some people, to a comic or the written word.

I see critical comments about Opal, and also about Peggy, in “Daddy’s Home”, Nancy, in “Luann”, and others I can’t think of…..

usually the women, but sometimes the men, too…

or sometimes they’re not spouses, but comedy foils, like Grandma in “Agnes.”

They’re called mean, or suggestions are made to dump them.

Yet if you see a pair like that living next door… even on TV, like on “Roseanne”, or “Married with Children”…

you know you’re supposed to giggle, not be outraged.

Look way back, to “The Honeymooners.”

Some of Jackie Gleason’s “funny” digs sound a bit more misogynistic in 2018… but the bickering, and Alice’s heavy sarcasm… were the basis of the humor.

Maybe GoComics needs a laugh track!

We haven’t had an argument in nearly 30 years. My wife will hate to hear the bad news.

I got along great with my first wife. That marriage lasted 2 years. Now my wife and I argue all the time and we’re going on 37.

Point.

I asked my nephew why he was planning to marry his girlfriend when they were always fighting? He said it was spice in life he couldn’t stand be like me and my wife because we were boring. I guess it worked he is now on his forth marriage.

Comedy, or humor, is based upon exaggeration. All healthy relationships have disagreements. Being “of an age” with both Opal and Earl, I understand the dynamic very well (spoken from the vantage point of a 44 year relationship). A friend once remarked that spending an evening at our house was like being in the middle of a Mel Brooks movie. We rather liked that.

My folks sometimes bickered, sometimes argued vehemently…but loved each other dearly. That was evident in many ways, not always verbal. Their 62 year marriage ended with my mom’s passing, and my dad was heartbroken.

The spice of life is that your partner is a hoot

Put together, two very strong minded, opinionated, volatile, passionate individuals, who also are extremely sensitive to others, have a wicked sense of humor, and are capable of acts of random kindness, and you have a picture of my First Maite and me.

When an old curmudgeonly Irishman marries a strong willed Latina grandmother, there’s bound to be sparks…and where there’s sparks, there’s fire !

But with that fire is also love and deep caring for the other person. We’ve weathered the sometime stormy seas of matrimony and life together, for going on 5 years and are aiming for at least another 45 more – thus amazing our friends and family, confounding our enemies, and the government, and defying actuarial logic !

Disagreements and bickering are momentary and arguments never slept on.

Teasing, joking, good humor are more prevalent than the negativity and always, underlying everything, is a deep love and respect for each other.

Now, that’s profound.