Clear As Mud

by Michael R. Ritt

My redheaded sweetheart, Tami, was playing one of her word games on her laptop the other day when I walked into the room. “Honey, I heard someone use a word on the radio and I don’t know what it means.”

She continued with her game without looking up. “What’s the word?”

“Perspicuous,” I answered.

She answered without missing a beat, “The meaning is ‘clear.’”

“Not to me.”

She looked up from her game and stared at me in confusion. “What?”

“What does the word ‘perspicuous’ mean?” I repeated the question, thinking that maybe I didn’t have her full attention the first time that I asked.

“I told you; the meaning is ‘clear.’”

“But it’s not clear to me.”

“Yes, it is. It’s clear to everyone.”

“It’s clear to you?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s clear to me?”

“Of course.”

“Then why don’t I know what it means?”

“I just told you what it means.”

“You haven’t told me anything!” I was starting to get a little irritated. “If you don’t know the meaning of the word, just say so. I won’t think any less of you.”

My redhead likes to play this game where she sighs and rolls her eyes into the back of her head and pretends like I said something stupid. She did the eye-roll thing now.

“I don’t have time for games,” I said. “I was just hoping that you knew what ‘perspicuous’ meant.”

I could hear her mumbling something under her breath, and I realized that she was counting to ten. That’s something that she does a lot, and has ever since we were married almost thirty-five years ago. I think that it helps her to refocus. Poor thing loses her concentration so quickly.

I let her finish counting. Then she gave another big sigh and said, “Let me try this again. If I give you a synonym for ‘perspicuous,’ do you think that you could figure out what it means?”

“Yummy!” I said. “That’s a wonderful idea. I could go for some cinnamon toast.” I turned to head toward the kitchen.”

“STOP!!” she shouted. “I didn’t say ‘cinnamon.’ I said ‘synonym.’ You know…a word that means the same as another word?”

“That’s a great idea, sweetie,” is what I said. But what I was thinking was that if she knew a word that meant the same as ‘perspicuous,’ she should have told me what it was in the first place. But I try to encourage her as much as I can when she is having difficulty communicating and expressing herself. After all, I’m the writer in the family. She’s not the professional communicator that I am. “Can you think of a cinnamon?”

“SYNONYM!” she shouted.

“Whatever. Can you think of one?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Well, what is it?” I was getting anxious to put this little mystery to bed.

“It’s ‘obvious.’”

“Awesome! I can’t wait to hear what it is.”

She looked like she was about to cry, so I put my arm around her. “Don’t worry, sweetie. If you can’t think of a word that means the same, maybe you can think of a word that means the opposite. What are those called?”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “You mean ‘antonym?’”

I held her close and spoke slowly. “No, sweetie, my aunt’s name is Elaine.” She had lost focus again and had gone down a bunny trail. “Do you need to count to ten?”

She jumped to her feet, her clenched fists at her sides, and shouted, “I’m not talking about your aunt, Elaine. I said ‘ANTONYM.’ It’s a word that means the opposite of another word.”

She was clearly starting to get frustrated by this point, probably due to her lack of communication skills. When you’ve been together as long as we have, you start to pick up on the subtle clues. “Alright,” I said, as calmly as I could, “what’s the opposite of ‘perspicuous’?”

“That would be ‘confusing.’”

“Well, it couldn’t possibly be any more confusing than the rest of this conversation.”

At that point, she threw her arms into the air and declared, “That’s it. I give up. Go Google it.”

“I can’t,” I replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how to spell it.”

“Why don’t you call your Aunt Elaine and ask her.” She wiped her eyes and went back to her word game.

I didn’t say it to her face, because she was being overly sensitive at the time, but calling my aunt made more sense than anything she had said in the past ten minutes.

I just chalked the whole thing up to hormones. Tami has been going through “the change” for quite some time now, and I know how irrational and edgy she can get. Good thing for her that she has such a loving and supportive husband.

Bio:
Mike is an award-winning Western author currently living with his wife, Tami, in central Wisconsin. He has published numerous short stories and nonfiction articles, and his first novel was published in December 2020.