“I don’t get it,” he says.
“What’s not to get?” I ask.
And that’s pretty much how the conversation goes when my husband is baffled by something I think, feel, say or do. Thankfully, after nearly 35 years of marriage, we’re both okay with some unsolved mysteries.
I sometimes still try to explain myself—rather emphatically, even—but I no longer expect or require Joe to completely understand me.
Surely God hath created women to confuse men. Or so it would seemeth.
The topic of one of our recent “I-don’t-get-it” conversations was my neurotic desire not to know the outcome of recorded sporting events before I watch them on T.V.
Thanks to the wonders of digital video recording, fans like me can watch sporting events long after they’ve actually ended, zipping through commercials at lightning speed. Watching games and tournaments this way consumes a whole lot less time, and more importantly, grants me a reprieve from watching those tortuous pharmaceutical commercials that include scenes of middle-aged couples sitting side-by-side in unplumbed, outdoor bathtubs. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself fortunate and leave it at that.)
There is, however, a price to pay for this viewing freedom. Until I watch the recorded event, I must take great pains to avoid learning who won. More than once, I’ve stuffed my fingers in my ears and screamed out, “La,la,la, la, la!” to keep from hearing a score.
Pretty weird, my hubby thinks, even for me.
“I don’t get it,” Joe said. “It seems like you could relax and enjoy the game more if you knew ahead of time who’d won.”
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded. “You’re kidding, right?”
He wasn’t. He genuinely didn’t get it. In the course of the conversation that ensued, Joe cited research he read that supposedly proves that moviegoers enjoy a movie more if they know how it ends.
“Isn’t it just about watching the players play, seeing their skills?” he asked.
My short answer? “Nope.”
My longer explanation involved an impassioned lecture about the importance of suspenseful tension and drama in sports. Athletes’ skills are inherently wonderful and entertaining, but so are mysteries like: who’s going to win? will momentum suddenly shift? will there be an epic comeback? will a last-second miracle take place?
What’s not to understand about that? Take the suspense out of sports and you might as well be watching a bunch of lions chasing down a poor old wildebeest on the National Geographic Channel. You know from the start how it’s going to end—where’s the fun in that, for pete’s sake?
Joe doesn’t get it because he’s not a sports nut. While I was out playing on courts and fields as a kid, he was on a farm tinkering with tractors and hot rods. Now he has useful, money-saving skills and I have worn-out joints and apparent sports-viewing neuroses.
The irony is that generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of mystery and suspense. I’ve accepted it in marriage, and enjoy it in sports and reading, but in every other arena of life that I can presently recall, I like to know how things will end.
That’s especially true when it concerns the really big things of life, things much more important than a Wimbledon tennis match, a round of golf at the Master’s, or even the Auburn-Alabama football game.
What’s going to happen to this world? To me? How’s it going to end? Who wins?
The particulars and exact timing of what’s to come may be a bit mysterious, but according to the Bible, the overall outcome is sure and certain.
“…whosoever believes in Him (Jesus) should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
No mystery there … and I’m glad.