I’ve Never Read Gone With the Wind

On our drive home from work the other night, I was talking with CC about a book I’m reading, Cinders by Michelle Davidson Argyle (which is great).

Me: It starts in the Happily Ever After part of Cinderella, only it isn’t.

CC: Isn’t Cinderella?

Me: Isn’t happy. Anyway-

CC: What, like she turns into a man instead of a pumpkin?

Me: {sigh} That was the coach.

CC: She played softball?

Me: You’re not funny. Cinderella never turned into a pumpkin. The coach turned into a pumpkin.

CC: She played softball with pumpkins?

Me: Are you finished?

CC: {smirks in silence}

Me: Anyway there are these peasant uprisings and there’s this whole thing about how love is a choice, and a bunch of stuff happens. . .

CC: That’s pretty profound.

Me: How love is a choice?

He ignores my implications.

CC: No, “a bunch of stuff happens”.

Me: {sigh}

CC: You know what’s an excellent book? Gone With the Wind. You should really read that.

He reminds me, every time we talk about books, which is often, that I’ve never read Gone With The Wind. I’ve also never read Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, or War and Peace (or any Tolstoi to completion, for that matter) but he never mentions those.

Me: Yeah, yeah. Gone With the Wind. It’s on my list.

CC: You know her daughter dies.

Me: That’s sad. Wait, she was married?

CC: If you read the book, you’d know.

Me: It’s on my list, I swear.

CC: She’s married three times in the course of the book.

Me: Three times! I didn’t know you were allowed to get divorced even once back then. Did she marry the I-don’t-give-a-damn-guy?

CC: You know it won the Pulitzer prize.

Me: Wait is that where that, “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies!” comes from, one of her marriages?

CC: No.

Me: I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies either.

CC: That line is regarding Melanie.

Me: Seems like after three times she’d know though.

CC: {sigh}

Me: Wait, who the hell is Melanie? I thought her name was Scarlett. As in Letter.

CC: You should read it. We have it downstairs.

Me: C’mon, that was funny. Scarlett. As in Letter. It’s like, literary, even.

CC: Did I mention it won the Pulitzer?

Me: Did she have to get married three times, if you know what I mean?

CC: If you just read the damn book, you’d know.

Me: That sounds like something the I-don’t-give-a-damn-guy would say.

CC: I can’t believe with all your women’s lit that you’re always going on about you’ve never read Gone With The Wind.

I’m plowing my way through the Norton Anthology of Literature By Women. I often make him listen to my thoughts on this, too, when we drive home.

Me: I didn’t know a woman wrote it!

CC: You didn’t know that Margaret Mitchell is a woman?

Me: Margaret Mitchell?

CC: Yeah, the most popular female author of the twentieth century until J.K. Rowling came along?

Me: I love J.K. Rowling. She’s like, magic.

CC: Don’t you have something to do now?

Me: No, we’re still driving home. You’re trapped with me.

CC: {mumbles something incoherent but I’m pretty sure I pick out the words “window” and “pavement”}

Me: Hey, I think I’ve heard of Margaret Mitchell. Didn’t she write Gone With The Wind?

CC: I am going to bang my head on something pointy now.

Me: I heard that was a good book. Have you ever read it?

Have you? What haven’t you read?

Mr. Contradictory Answers the Question

I’m in the bathroom, doing my makeup, trying to get ready for work. #5 runs in.

#5: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

He’s never asked this before.

Me: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Nobody knows.

#5: Nobody?

Me: Nobody.

#5: Really.

I look at him. He’s totally channeling all of his teen sisters right now and has the sarcasm and the look down perfectly. This is not the answer he’s looking for. Also, he doesn’t believe me.

#5: Nobody?

Me: Yeah, no one knows. I mean there are all these scientific papers and stuff, but for every one that says it’s the egg, another one says it’s the chicken. So no one knows. For real.

I go back to putting on mascara.

#5: You know, when you open your mouth and mash your chin into your neck like that you look weird.

(runs out of bathroom)

He’s right, of course. I do look weird.

(runs back in bathroom)

#5: Well, which one do you think it was?

Me: Mmm. I think maybe it was the chicken.

#5: I think it was the egg.

(runs out of bathroom)

Of course he thinks it’s opposite of whatever I think.

(runs back in bathroom)

#5: It was the chicken.

Me: Yeah?

#5: Definitely the chicken.

Me: You mean I was right?

#5: No. I mean it had to be the chicken because how could an egg just randomly come to earth?

I picture a spaceship, piloted by a solo egg. He won’t admit he’s agreeing with me, so I switch tactics, because I can be stubborn too.

Me: Well, what do they teach you in Sunday school? That God is all-powerful, right?

Solely by the kindness of some of our excellent friends, the kids go to Sunday School pretty much every week.

Me: If he can make a chicken, surely he could make a self-hatching egg one time, right?

#5: {silence}

I’m totally not playing fair. He has no problem contradicting me, but stops short of contradicting God. It’s the entire reason I played the God card.

Me: He made Adam, right? So an egg is like, no big deal.

#5: Who’s Adam?

Me: Seriously?

#3, passing by: Wait, what did he ask?

Me: Who’s Adam.

#3: Isn’t it, like, Adam and Eve or something?

Me: {sigh} Yes. Yes it is.

#5: It was the chicken.

(runs out of bathroom)

One and Done #3

Welcome to One and Done Sunday.

Here’s your picture (forgive me, it’s the kind of picture you take in the parking lot with your cell phone while you’re trying to look like you’re not taking a picture):