Ask My Wife

Scuba diving is a great hobby. I was never much of an artsy person, but there is something about the underwater environment that leaves me absolutely awestruck. The combination of sea life, coral reefs and my buffoon of a brother tugging on my regulator takes my breath away. Unfortunately, despite the beautiful landscape and exciting experience, I can safely estimate that only a minority of the population will ever strap a tank to their back, throw on some fins and give it a shot. A lot of people I talk to immediately jump to questions like "what if you run out of air?" or "what if you see a shark?" to which my responses are respectively, "keep an eye on your gauge" and "dive with someone who is more 'rounded off' than you because predators of the sea tend to go for the buffet over the snack. psychological self psych outs such as this are the result of people immediately jumping to a negative. This is the kind of thinking that kept me off the dance floor in middle school, I thought "if I ask her to dance, statistically speaking, there is a 50% chance I will be disappointed. Here's a freebie, if your inner monologue about asking a girl to dance with you involves the words "statistically speaking", STAY HOME! As I've grown older. I've realized that this train of treacherous thought is ridiculous, no one ever refuses to drive because an idiot acquaintance might slug them if they see a Volkswagon Beetle or they might throw up from seeing someone driving a Nissan Juke. It might happen, but that's just a calculated risk people need to mull over in their mind.  I would strongly encourage anyone to try scuba diving at least once.

Aside from the aesthetic benefits, diving has also given me the opportunity to travel and meet a lot of new people because dive boats usually take out between ten and twenty people or more at a time. Other people may be from different states, countries or continents and may barely even speak the same language, but the moment we set out on that diving boat, we can already communicate from a point of at least one commonality.

During my most recent trip to the Caribbean, my family sat next to a particular gentlemen and attempted to exchange petty pleasantries and some sort of pre-dive dialogue. We learned where he was from and what he did for a living, but after that the conversation got the whole "first and last date" vibe really quick. We asked him where he was staying and he said "I don't know, I'll have to ask my wife, she's out shopping."

"How long are you here for?"

"My wife has really been keeping track of all of that, I don't really know."

"Are you guys doing anything else while you're here?"

"Not sure. I'm going to have to check with my wife."

"Have you two eaten anywhere that you'd recommend?"

"She wrote down a couple of places that she wanted try so we are going to check those out."

"Are you guys headed anywhere else or just staying on the island?"

"My wife wants to see if there's anything close by so we may or may not make another stop or two?"

"How long have you been scuba diving?"

"I've been diving a few other times, but my wife would rather shop."

"Do you have any kids with you here?"

"My wife may have brought one or two of them down, but she would know that better than me."

I could go on, as he did, but I think you get the point. This man seemed to be the living inspiration for the Jimmy Buffet song "Escape" because as we got to know him and his very limited vocabulary a bit more, I was not entirely sure that he and his wife were down there together on purpose. He seemed to have little interest in obtaining information on establishments that provided the necessary nourishment to continue this sad story he called his life.  Also, judging by his lack of knowledge with regards to the identities and whereabouts of his own children, I began to think "Is this guy here to abduct kids?" We continued to be cordially conversational and he continued his metamorphosis into some kind of Whipped Wishiwashi as he appeared to only know how to repeatedly use a singular phrase.  It was absolutely astounding, as if eHarmony had agreed to give him $1,000 for every time he mentioned his wife in conversation. There's a definite difference between having love and lordship over someone  and it became increasingly clear that, aside from ourselves and his wife, the only other person he had probably ever had to answer to was the pastor that asked him "do you take this woman as your wife?" Even then, he may have diverted the question to her out of fear of expressing the ability to think critically for himself.

The craziest part is, after spending almost an entire afternoon with this guy, we learned very little about him or his warlord of a wife. I can't give you any personality or backstory information off the top of my head Mrs. Mystery Mussolini or her frightened, forgetful foot soldier. I couldn't even tell you this guys name. There are kids that beat me up in elementary school whose names I knew. Virtually the first bit of information I would learn about someone in a social setting is immaterial in this instance. However, I did accidentally learn one encouraging piece of information about credit card carrying, Prada purchasing point of intersection that concluded each of our introductory inquiries. She was a thoughtful, kindhearted woman who stayed up to date on what the weather was going to be doing because, although it would have been our sole savior in adding an identity this this emasculated individual, given the sweltering heat we experienced that day, the tan-lines around the neck left by his name collar would have been awkward.