It was from The Loved One. To refresh your memory, she's staying in the town of Bloomington Indiana during the workweek while I remain in Louisville trying to sell our home. Ergo, the email.
She'd read my post of Tuesday, March 24, and wasn't happy. Entitled, "A Fallen Idol," it recounted the accidental revelation that I dabble occasionally in a pastime that is common, winked at, relatively harmless, and, by the way, a tad illegal. I say it was accidental because in the course of a conversation, I'd forgotten that my 13-year-old niece Arianna was sitting at the lunch table. Without thinking, I let slip the dabbling in question. Arianna promptly raked me over the coals for engaging in such a pursuit when she's warned ad nauseum not to do so.
It was one of my personal favorite posts for this communications colossus. In it, I grappled with my status as a role model for an impressionable, adoring young girl. I concluded by writing that I have no good answers for any of her pointed questions.
I'm being cagey here because of the email. The Loved One begged me to remove the post. She argued that the mere mention of the pastime could lead to dire consequences. Lose of jobs. Imperiling future employment opportunities. Loss of health care coverage and worse.
My first impulse was to stiffen my spine and refuse to delete it. I girded for the fight. I'd cite the First Amendment. I'd invoke artistic license. I'd pick apart her arguments with the precision of Clarence Darrow or Johnnie Cochran. I'd crush her silly demand as easily as I'd snuff out a cigarette butt with the toe of my shoe.
Luckily for me, I'd been enjoying a beer when the email came in. I planned to get to work immediately on my brilliant rebuttal but first I had to return some of the ingested beer to the water cycle. I stood in the porcelain-tiled room, performing that time-honored post-libation ritual, thinking about how unfair The Loved One was being to this sensitive virtuoso. As the seconds ticked by, I entertained delicious images of The Loved One slinking away in defeat, having been humiliated by my unassailable logic. Consequences, huh? I'd show her the consequences of trying to squelch a literary craftsman!
Would Mark Twain have stood for this? Phillip Roth? For pity's sake, Salman Rushdie went underground for years in defense of his right to publish freely.
Then I zipped up. Suddenly, the thought occurred to me that The Loved One really wasn't trying to smash my windpipe with the heel of her jackboot. Sheesh, she's just a caring, somewhat scared working person trying to keep our family income level north of the poverty line.
Do I really want to crush her? Humiliate her? Would I enjoy watching her slink away in defeat?
Like that, I decided to delete the post.
Deleting a Google Blogger post is awfully easy. Physically, that is. A couple of button clicks and the post disappears as if it had never existed. Still, there was a pugnacious, righteous part of me that resisted fiercely.
I told myself a couple of things. One, the post wasn't Twain's "Letters From The Earth." It wasn't "Portnoy's Complaint" or "The Satanic Verses." It was a simple rumination about an everyday moral dilemma.
The second - and more important - consideration was the fact that, golly gee, I really do love The Loved One! Even if I disagree with her reasoning (and believe me, I don't buy a word of it,) this means a hell of a lot to her.
Is my pompous dedication to some ideal of literary purity worth more than her sense of well-being? The answer, I reminded myself and my recalcitrant button-clicking finger, was no. I clacked the delete button and the post was no more.
I dashed off a response to The Loved One's email. I did it, it read. I want to keep peace in the family. Now, I never want to hear another word about it again. Ever. Please.
I feared rehashing the argument might stir up my blood.
My old pal Danny, whose family is visiting me this week, laughingly reminded me that many wives just might find the urge to revisit the contretemps irresistible. Hmm. The Loved One, I suspected, might indeed wish to explain herself in greater detail after returning home on Friday night. I told Danny I hoped she wouldn't. All I need to know is that removing the post means a lot to her.
It's Saturday morning now. She hasn't mentioned it yet. The hammer may fall soon. Then again, maybe it won't. So goes the challenge of marriage.
