Marital Mazes

I’ve written before about trying to get a copy of the book women are issued post-wedding ceremony which lays out the tactics for managing husbands.  This handbook is obviously one of the closest held secrets which feminine wiles have yet to reveal.  While I admire the opposite sex’s operational security concerning this tome I found myself victimized by it’s techniques again yesterday. 

We had a showing scheduled for the house which my wife ably prepared for.  We usually get the feedback from the showing via our realtor.  My wife called around noon to ask if I’d heard and I blithely (and somewhat stupidly) told her that they had canceled at the last minute.  She then complained that this was unacceptable since she spent a half hour parked at the nearby mall with Buddy the Wonder Pooch.  I told her the buyers claimed their children were sick.  She scoffed at the idea and we left it at that (or so I thought!). 

I returned home following work and found her uncharacteristically quiet.  Since she’s usually the one carrying the conversation this led to an awkward silence which is never a good sign and invariably leads me to make the cardinal sin of asking her what’s wrong.  At the end of the next fifteen minutes I was apologizing profusely for the potential buyers having sick kids.  I’m still trying to figure out how the hell she does this to me.  I’ve got to get a copy of that book! 

Once I was properly castigated for my complete lack of empathy we decided on honoring date night.  We went to see the movie Maze Runner which I had no clue about.  This is apparently another one of those “young adult” series of books cloned from the DNA of the Hunger Games.  I was pleasantly surprised by the flick which was well edited and boasts a plot that keeps the action and tension taut enough to ignore the obvious inconsistencies and plot holes.  The story revolves around a group of teenaged boys thrown into the middle of a maze with their memories wiped out.  The door to the surrounding maze opens each day which allows the boys to explore before nightfall when menacing robotic creatures called “grievers” wander the maze to kill.

This was an updated take on the Lord of the Flies with the millennial youth doing much better with their isolation than their predecessors, or so it appears on the surface.  The movie is carried by the young cast, especially Dylan O’Brien in the lead role, who was so good in last year’s The Internship. This kid’s got a real future, someone to look out for.  I know this movie was aimed for the young fans of the books (if the teenybopper mutterings from the last row of the theater were any indication) but the film got my attention as well. I really liked this movie.  My wife did as well although the spider-like grievers promise to haunt her for a while.  She wants me to warn my son (who hates spiders) off.