Telltale signs of a married couple

 

There is a long standing joke about how you can tell that a couple is married. Apparently, if you peep into a private car in traffic and find two people in obvious stony silence accompanied by surly looks, it means that they are married. Folks, that is as misleading as trying to interprete smoke signals. You will know a couple is as married as a dondo if they do any of the following things.

When two people stick to a lie like thieves and spin a story, especially for the children or the traffic police, and not even torture would make them divert from it, just know they are one. You will be left with egg on your face if you try to give a different version of their story. It is no wonder that spouses are not considered credible witnesses against each other in a court of law.

If you find a man and woman sitting in comfortable silence but not observing any social distance, do not try wedging in between them. Do not assume their silence is boredom either. They are as attuned as an oboe and piano in a musical ensemble. Trying a conversation to, ostensibly entertain them will be like selling swimming costume to fish.

When you make assumptions about one of them but the other corrects you. Once, as we had dinner in a restaurant, hubby asked for his favourite hot chocolate and I asked for a tot of a Scottish whiskey. A different waiter delivered our drinks and nicely set out the chocolate and cookies in-front of me.

“That’s my order,” hubby told him.

The man apologised and served him the drinking chocolate but instead of now serving my drink, he went back and hastily brought me tea!

“She doesn’t like tea. I think she ordered a whiskey.”

The waiter looked perfectly stunned as he later served me.

Common enemy

When a couple argue about who said what or who told the other about something. When I was studying for my post graduate course, I would come home and enthral hubby with my new found knowledge.

“Today, we discussed the onion theory of communication.”

A year later, he was telling a group of us about the onion theory and claiming that he had read about it somewhere.

“I told you about it!” I reminded him.

“No, you didn’t!”

It is only married people, and probably siblings that constantly wish they had copyrighted and patented their stories!

You know they are married when they are beefing against each other but if you take a side, they both eventually turn against you. Shall increase the volume? Never take sides with any one of them. When they both retreat to their bedroom, magic happens, and their hearts melt, and you will become the common enemy when they discuss you.

When they match outfits and remain oblivious to the fact that they are the butt of jokes at the party. Let me not tell you about our brown jackets and how we were aptly labelled, ‘The Chagets Couple’ at our friend’s anniversary celebrations.

Meet serikali and chairman

When two people laugh at a bland comment as if it is the most humorous joke on the face of the earth, do not worry about their sanity. They are alright, just married and the story behind the comment is a very long one. Leave them alone and go on talking about the typography of the audience analysis report as you were.

When they call each other weird names, not the typical babe or darling that we are used to, just know that they are married. I know someone who refers to his wife as the serikali and another that speaks of chairman in reference to her husband. I learnt this during a normal chat with one of them.

“What happened to you guys moving to Rongai as you had mentioned last year?” I asked.

“The government decided against it,” he replied, straight- faced.

It took me many minutes to figure when he next said that the government had also decided that they would sell their car and buy the new one they now were driving.

When in a mixed ethnic marriage and one adopts the other’s accent and culture. The strangest one was this American woman who now speaks with a Kikuyu accent and her Kikuyu husband has developed the American twang. Our in law from Nyanza now speaks in our accent and chews the twigs better than our brothers.    BY DAILY NATION