My Marriage and Al Gore

Al Gore had a good week last week. He was on The Colbert Report Tuesday night, and sparred competently with the amazingly agile and witty Stephen Colbert. My husband, the Center of the Universe (CoTU) and I enjoyed the spectacle immensely. When it ended, I blithely commented that Colbert hadn’t even plugged the new dance studio Gore had opened.


“Dance studio?” the hub inquired.

“Yeah, it’s based on math formulas. It’s called the Al-go-rhythm,” I deadpanned. He threw a throw pillow at me. Maybe that’s how they got the name. You know: throw pillows. Sorry.

Then Wednesday as I was preparing our lunch, listening to Neal Conan’s Talk of the Nation on NPR, and soaking up the pun-ditry and wisdom of the ‘political junkie’ Ken Rudin (his cohort for the Wednesday show) CoTU moseyed into the kitchen. I subtly pointed at the radio so he’d know that I was focused on what was being said, and implying that he might be interested, too. He was.

He also began quietly foraging in the pantry for a snack to tide him over the next ten minutes or so while I created a chef’s salad for me and a turkey wrap with black olives and sun-dried tomatoes for him. Often, when he does this, I point out (helpfully) that a meal is just moments away. He then (helpfully) points out in response that his snacking has never dulled his appetite for a meal. Case closed. This time, I chose to save my breath, since my helpfulness has never deterred his snacking anyway.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gore again espoused the breadth and depth of the scientific community’s belief in climate change and the human component thereof. Although he said it much better than that, and didn’t have to use ‘thereof’.

CoTU popped some dry-roasted peanuts into his mouth and said, “He does a fine job of stating the facts, outlining the situation, and proposing solutions.”

I stopped chopping tomatoes for the salad and gave him a cold, hard stare. “This man has been vice-president of the United States, holds numerous honorary doctorates from respected universities, in 2007 he won an Emmy, a Grammy, the Nobel Peace Prize for heaven’s sake, and pretty much everything but the Heisman trophy—but believe me, I’m sure nothing would mean as much to him as your glowing assessment of his competence.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he would,” CoTU agreed, totally missing my sarcasm. “Is he divorced now?”

“I guess so—I recall hearing that he and Tipper separated about a year ago. Why—are you planning to fix him up with someone?” I asked.

“Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-no.”

Pause.

“You want to date him yourself?” I suggested.

He choked on a peanut.

We went back to listening to the interview, enjoying the rich repartee of the co-hosts with their guest. Soon our lunch was ready and we sat down to eat, still listening to the radio. When the program ended, we did our usual post-mortem on it—what we thought about the points made, and the other ideas that had come to mind while we had been listening.

As we cleared the table and put the dishes into the dishwasher (and when I say ‘we’, I mean me), CoTU suggested we head upstairs to double our entrendres. (Insert your favorite euphemism here.)

“Cool,” I said. “As long as you’re not going to be thinking about Al Gore.”

“And as long as you’re not going to blog about this,” he added.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight…

“You know, maybe Al and Tipper would still be together if he had spent less time working on the environment of the planet, and more time working on the home environment,” CoTU said.

“Or maybe Tipper got tired of polishing his trophies,” I remarked.

“So to speak…” he mumbled.