Updated: 9:10 a.m. EDT July 15, 2003
Single men can cancel their trips to the Dairy State:
Miss Wisconsin is engaged.
I'm afraid I don't know much more beyond that, though, because of the way Judy communicates.
If you're signed up for TheIndyChannel.com's breaking news alerts, you know that when there's breaking news, you get a simple message in your inbox that says something like, "Wales Adopts Chris Cope As King," and then instructs you to click a link to get more information on the story.
Judy sends personal e-mails in that same breaking-news style, sans the link that provides more information. So, last week I got an e-mail that said something like:
"Engaged. Will have to do residency in NYC after 10 mos. additional med school."
Judy is (presumably -- I don't know, do I?) still months away from jumping the broom, but already she's communicating like a true married veteran.
Married people have a weird sort of un-language, marked by incomplete sentences and failure to use proper nouns.
Recently, my wife and I were in the car. After about five minutes without talking, she suddenly said:
"They said we could do that."
Huh?! If that sentence were on the SAT, I would have pencilled in: "E) Not enough information to solve problem."
Frenchy-type philosopher Rene Descartes rather famously pointed out that if he could understand his own thoughts, he was pretty sure that he did indeed exist. But he couldn't necessarily say the same for anyone else around him because he wasn't a part of their thoughts.
"Perhaps this is what my wife is doing," I thought (thereby proving that I exist). "She figures that since she doesn't know whether I exist, there's little point in using proper language to try to convey information to something (me) that may, in fact, just be a figment of her imagination.
"Perhaps I should just be comfortable in the knowledge that I exist, and that Rachel is pretty sure that she, too, exists, and not ask any questions."
After about another minute's silence, I was forced to seek more information. As it turns out, "They" = the apartment management; and "that" = painting the dining room yellow.
I was supposed to know this, of course, because I'm married to her.
Married people get so comfortable with our spouses, and so used to having them as a part of every single part of our lives, that we begin to think that perhaps they can read our thoughts.
I am much worse about this than my wife -- I walk around speaking Welsh to her. And because I am such an incredibly simple person to figure out, she is usually able to correctly guess that I want beer or sex or attention, leading me to believe that she understands what I am saying.
But since she swears that she hasn't picked up any Welsh from me, I can only logically assume that she can hear me think.
As a result, I will often walk into a room and say something like: "Do you ...," pause, and then walk back out of the room. In my head, we have had a full conversation without having to have slowed it down by verbalizing it.
Rachel -- rightly so -- usually ignores me. But in so doing, she perpetuates my belief that I don't need to do all my own thinking. So, every day, I find myself wandering around the house saying things like, "Where are my keys?," and honestly expecting her to know.
I mean, why shouldn't she know? She's inside my head, right? And if she's inside my head, she "saw" me put my keys somewhere -- she's just taunting me by not telling me where they are.
So, my advice to Judy before she heads into marriage is this: "You'll probably want to keep some of those around."
My wife knows what I'm talking about.
Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.