Charlie's wife came into the room without him noticing, as usual. He was busy typing on the computer, connected to a bulletin board system on the other side of town, entering a message in a debate with another user about how stupid he thought the guy was and to what degree. Charlie was involved in his thought process and completely oblivious to her arrival.

Lauren stood behind him for a few seconds, waiting for acknowledgement.

"Which one of these pots do you like better for the kitchen window?" she asked, finally. "The yellow one or the green one? I’m not sure about the color."

"Uh-huh," he answered, trying not to lose his train of thought.

"It’s not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, Charlie. Please turn around."

Charlie turned slightly in his chair and took his eyes off the screen. "What?"

"The pots?" She wiggled the pots in her hands.

He looked at the pots. "Yes, those are pots."

"The color, dummy."

He looked at the pots again. "That one is yellow," he said, "and that one is green."

"I know what colors they are!" Lauren shouted. "I’m asking you which one you like better for the kitchen!"

"I don’t know, pick whichever one you like best," he shouted back.

"I’m not asking which one I like! I already know which one I like! I’m asking which one you like!" She let out a sigh in exasperation.

"Fine then," Charlie said, studying the pots for a moment. "Um... I like the green one."

Lauren furrowed her brow and glared at him. "But the green one doesn’t go with the oven."

"Then why the hell did you ask me!" he shouted, waving his arms wildly. "If you like the yellow one, use the yellow one!"

"But I don’t want to use the yellow one if you don’t like it!"

"I like it fine," he said. "The question wasn’t ‘which one of these do you not hate,’ it was ‘which one of these do you like best.’ I like them both. I like the green one best, but the yellow one is fine, too."

"But you said you like the green," she said, thrusting the green pot at him.

"I don’t care either way, yellow is fine."

She was still glaring at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said, "I'm sure. Yellow. I love the yellow."

"You don’t have to lie to me, I want your honest opinion."

"I mean it," he said, trying to contain himself. "The more I look at the yellow one, the more I like it. It’s a nice yellow."

"You like the yellow?"

"Yes!"

"You really like it?"

"My god, yes!" Charlie bellowed. "I love it! I have never seen such a yellow! I can die a happy man now that I have seen that pot! Please put it in the kitchen!" With an exasperated sigh, he turned his attention back to the computer and began typing again.

"Really?" Lauren held up the yellow pot and looked at it. Then she held up the green pot and looked at that one. "I don’t know," she said. "I think I like the green one."

She turned and walked out of the room.

Five minutes later, some of her words filtered through to Charlie's brain. He stopped typing and looked towards the door. "What did you just say?" he shouted down the hall.

"What?" came the reply from the kitchen.

"What was that you just said about the oven?"

"I didn't just say anything."

"No," Charlie said, "I mean when you were in here. What was that you said about putting the pots in the oven?"

A moment later, Lauren came into the room. "What the hell are you babbling about?"

"You were just in here," said Charlie, "and you said something about putting those pots in the oven. What are you trying to do? Burn the house down?"

Lauren's eyebrows crunched together as she scowled at him. "What is the matter with you?" she said. "I never said anything of the kind."

"Yes you did," said Charlie.

"I most certainly did not."

"You did!" he shouted, waving his hands in the air. "You stood right there, holding some goddamned pots, and you said something about how they are supposed to go in the oven!"

Lauren put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips together. "Charlie," she said slowly, "if you had been paying attention at all you would know that I didn't say that. What I said was that the green pot didn't match the color of the paint on the oven in the kitchen where the pot is going."

Charlie scratched his head. "Oh," he said. "That's different."

"Yes, dammit, it is."

"Well, then, I'm sorry."

Charlie turned back to his computer and began typing furiously.

"That's the problem, right there," Lauren said, pointing at the keyboard. "That stupid thing. You're always on the computer. Your mind just disappears into the cosmos. When you're on the computer you're cosmic, Charlie." She tapped her foot impatiently behind him. "You pay more attention to that stupid computer than you do to me."

"No, no," he said, not taking his eyes from the screen. "That's not true."

"It is too!"

"It isn't," he said. "Just last week we went somewhere together."

Lauren folded her arms. "Really? Where?"

"Um," said Charlie through the clackity-clack of his typing, "we went to that thing, you know. Downtown."

"No, I don't know. Enlighten me."

"That thing downtown. Dammit, Lauren, you know what I'm talking about. Don't do this to me."

She shook her head. "You can't concentrate on this conversation while you type, can you?"

"Sure I can."

"Then where did we go?"

Charlie's typing slowed down a bit. "Er, it was that store place. The one with the food."

Lauren's mouth fell open. "The supermarket?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Charlie," she said, "the supermarket is not a date. If you were paying attention to the conversation, you would know that. See, this is what I'm talking about."

Charlie continued typing, his eyes intently fixed straight ahead.

"Get off the computer and talk to me."

"Yes, dear," he droned. Clickety, clack, clack.

"Charlie, I mean it. Get off the computer."

"Okay, okay," he replied, and then continued typing.

Lauren stormed out of the room.

Three minutes later, all the electricity in the house went dead.

Charlie sat in disbelief, staring straight ahead and the monitor in front of him. He waited a full two minutes for the power to come back on before he concluded that it wouldn't come on just because he wanted it to, and that maybe he should see what was wrong.

Stumbling around the house in the dark was not something Charlie was used to. His eyes were bad enough from staring at the screen all day, and in the dark he was like a mole, bumping into damn near everything he owned before he finally made it out the front door.

Lauren was outside the old Victorian house, standing in front of the fuse box, pulling out the glass tubes one-by-one and smashing them onto the ground.

"What the hell are you doing!" shouted Charlie.

"Saving our marriage!" shouted Lauren.

She began jumping up and down on the shattered fuses, grinding the glass bits into the cement.

"Jesus, Lauren," said Charlie. "If you wanted me to get off the computer, all you had to do was say so."