"She wants to get inside your head and tell it like it is…"-BRMC

"And a good marriage? What makes that?"

"Excuse me?" I said that not because I didn't hear or understand the words dropping from his mouth; these were English, and well enunciated. I just couldn't believe he asked me.

"Excuse me Ms. Spears? Could you spare a second? I need parenting tips…"

"What makes a good marriage?" He asks again. He's persistent. He doesn't know me, and he's just trying to be conversational. How did we get to this?

Oh that's right, he made a joke. "My wife makes me do all this while she sits on her ass all day. What about your wife?"

Normal people have a "lie or ignore" strand hidden in their DNA. Normal people would have nodded and been done. Normal people are smarter than I am.

"I don't know, she left me." Now, my brain says "you probably shouldn't have said that…"

So this is followed up by the series of divorce questions, and the obligatory "That sucks." If it were a woman, she'd have said "I'm sorry." Guys don't say that. Guy's stick with "That sucks," it leaves room for deniable culpability.

"You washed your greasy tools in the dishwasher with the dinner dishes?"

"That sucks."

See? Maybe Speed Racer's ghost rinsed the spanner with the strainer, or maybe those rascally Duke boys; they were always working on the General Lee, and never cleaning their tools. That's probably because they hadn't mastered the ability to open the car door. Always the window entry. Probably a product of childhood B&E.

Always break into the open window. Never enter the guarded door.

If they were married they'd have learned to use the door. Mrs. Bo or Luke, tired of waiting up while the good ol' boys were being boys, would have rolled up the car's windows.

"Woman, you broke the door, and we was arrested!"

"I'm sorry. I'm just a girl."

Just a girl. And Freddy Kreuger is just the man of your dreams, nothing to worry about…

And see? This is where the war of passive aggression begins. I will offer this to my male brethren, do not get locked in a battle you can't win. Drag her out in the open if you can, because you'll never out guerrilla a PA master. Maybe I should make this an analogy that works for you.

Remember all the old kung fu movies? In between all the cool fight scenes and bad sound effects. There's always this old monk who rarely moves. He's the sublime senile sensei of sanguinity (And apparently a paragon of alliteration). He just smiles and passes on confusing parables.

"Listen young Cheese Doodle, to defeat your enemy, you must first become your enemy."

Wha?

Yet in the end we find out that this vague slippery noodle of advice is life altering. Turning boy into man, man into slave. We also see the little Yoda guy fight once.

Once.

He's such a badass master, that if he'd fought in the first five movie minutes, we could have mopped up the plot and gone home early. "But no," he would tell us from the screen, "it's not the destination. It's the journey, little game pad."

This little master is your passive aggressive wife, and you are but a mere cheese doodle for her to guide or crush. More than that, she dips in the generation pool of womanly wisdom:

"Listen sweetie muffin, To wash the dish, you must first clean the dish."

Wha?

The wise man never questions knowledge. He only does. Otherwise he must face her wrath.

Oh no! Not the PA tigress stance!

"AHHHHH!"

That's why communication is key. Crack the codes early, and you may not win the war, but at least you can keep up.

This is what I'm explaining to the man before me. His eyes glassed over sometime around the Duke boy reference. It's a wonder he stays married. He can't keep up with his own gender--a straggler waiting to be picked off.

Then again, maybe that is why he's still married.

Maybe I shouldn't talk to strangers. Not because they flash me from their car. I'm too old to worry about poisoned candy, but now I have to worry about people asking question I clearly have no business answering. I'm the one passing out Jujubes of death.

It's my curse. It's the glassy eyed man before me's curse as well.

"I guess if I knew that, I wouldn't be getting a divorce." I smile and shrug.

He basks in silence. His mind whirring, searching to lock into another cog, a foothold, or jump start to get things moving again.

"Next in line please."

And there it is. I nod and point the way before him, and he obediently follows.

What makes a good marriage? Knowing when to listen, and when to follow my friend. Knowing when to follow...