Cody and I were at my parents’ house sometime before we got marriage, eating the breakfast my mom made for us, and she was still adding more items to the smorgasbord. As she stirred veggies in a pan for omelettes and folded deli meats and cheeses, my dad was getting dressed in their adjacent bedroom and telling her a story in between grunts and pauses (the man’s pants seem to shrink of their own accord, he claims). I couldn’t help but notice that my mom was not only kind of listening to Dad, but also preparing breakfast and also unsuccessfully eavesdropping on my own quiet Sunday-morning conversations with Cody over the funny pages. When Dad’s story seemed to come to a conclusion, like the movement of a song finding its resting beat, my mom gave an over-zealous “Woow..”
Cody and I started laughing immediately. We still don’t know if it was the effort she was trying to put in, signaling to Dad that she actually was listening and trying to engage with his story, or the fact that the response was so ingenuous it was laughable. Whatever it was, Mom knew she was caught and let herself be caught in giggles. We didn’t know it at the time, but these “Woow” conversations are quite normal in marriage. For my dad, they’ve been happening for 40 years. For me and Cody, we’re trying to figure out which topics we can get away with responding “Whoaa” to, and which ones we need to be serious for (as-it should go without saying- a serious topic needs a serious listening ear).
Rather than bore you with which conversation topics those “Whoaa” responses are common for us as a couple (I suppose if you really want to know, you can just ask – I honestly don’t know if you’d be interested or not), I thought this Big Bang Theory clip was spot-on. Enjoy!