With our Mercurys in opposition and both of them Marsy, conflict is inevitable. The soldier and I on the phone… I was exasperated.

“I can’t hear you!” I said. “Do you understand? This is a crappy phone. I can’t hear what you’re saying, I’m not in the mood to do this in the first place, which by the way you never asked and then after going through all that, you start telling me some lecture and you go on and on and on and finally I can’t stand it anymore. I have to get a bag of cookies and eat most of them just to survive!”

He was quiet.

‘So now I don’t feel very good. I’m sick from the cookies and of you getting pissed off at me because I can’t understand what you’re saying. You have an accent you know! You twang all over the place and then when I can’t understand you start spelling things to me in that alpha bullshit as if that’s going to make it better!”

“In the army…”

“I know what that is! But I’m not in the army, am I? That’s your language not mine! You’re familiar with those words. You know them like the back of your hand but guess what! I don’t. To me it’s like I can’t understand something in English so now you start talking in French! How’s that going to help!”

“Well, P…”

“Well what? I don’t know the army alphabet. I know that man alphabet though, do you?”

“The man alphabet?”

“Yeah! One time I had this gay tech support guy and guess what his alphabet was?”

“What?”

“H – Harry. T- Tim. B, that’d be Bob! F is for Frank. Now that I could understand. Talk to me in men’s names and I will hear you but this alpha charley crap, come on! When I think here charley, I think of tuna! Isn’t charley a tunafish that talks? I think he is! Do you get my point? I don’t have the same associations as you. I DO NOT. I. Can’t. Understand. You. And then you get pissy with me like I’m stupid because you can’t talk or I can’t hear you or maybe it’s the phone. Or maybe I am rock and roll deaf but by now guess what? I don’t care. To hell with you. You can get someone else to be on the other end of the phone trying to figure out what you’re saying. Just don’t get snotty with me for a half hour and then when you’re done with that start up with some kind of history lesson. Oh my God… I have no choice but to eat a bag of cookies, what would you do?”

“See? This is why I can’t teach. I bore people. I have a class and I’ll be explaining something and all the sudden they all get up and go to the store for cookies. I’m sorry P.”

“Okay, well I think you should be. Number one, I’m not stupid just because I can’t speak Army in Twang and number two of you are going to tell me an hour long story you better make sure I’ve been laid beforehand. I want to be screwed first. Something. Something for me, otherwise it’s going to be just like this. I am going to be eating bags of cookies and blaming you for every crumb.”

He laughed. ‘Are you better now, P? I’m sorry I bored you and made you eat those cookies…”

“Yeah, I know it’s funny. Oh God, why don’t I just get a new phone? That would solve some of this I think. Anyway, never mind. The cookies have been eaten and now my point is made. And I know I am insufferable, okay? I do know that.”

He just laughed.