GORILLA POP QUIZ

I believe in tests. I believe in the ability of tests to test things: knowledge; expertise; the amount of time spent cramming for tests.

Heck, isn’t life the biggest test of all? All these amazing choices and you picked what?  That?

Quick! Here’s a test. Look at your walls. What’s hanging on them? That’s probably what you love. Oops, I just looked and realized that there are three ragged nail holes and some clipboards adorning my bedroom walls. I don’t love nail holes or clipboards. This particular test may need some fine-tuning.

Still, tests are good, and husband tests are the best tests of all. I have been administering gorilla pop quizzes and tests on my husband for thirty plus years. Results have been mixed.

While walking a Cocoa Beach boardwalk, my husband and I passed several svelte, nubile bikini clad girls. When I say ‘svelte’ I mean their outlines resembled all the curvy letters in the alphabet melted into an hourglass.

Time for husband pop quiz # 34,789 . . .

“Holy curvy girl, Batman, did you see those teenagers?” I asked, watching his face carefully for test anxiety. He was clueless.

“Ummmm?” he said, in his best pre-test uncertainty.

“Those girls.” I waved vaguely at their disappearing va-va-voomage. “I didn’t look like that when I was like that.”

“That’s true,” he said. “You didn’t look like that.”

“Really?” I stopped dead in my tracks.

“That was a test and you failed and wouldn’t you rather wait for the multi-choice answers? For example,  A) No, you did NOT look like those girls; you looked like a woman. My woman. Come here, woman!  B) What girls?  C) Those weren’t girls. They were bewitched Barbie dolls, or D) May my eyes explode if I ever look at another female in a bikini . . . and/or . . . clothes again.”

“Ummm, all of the above?”

“Good answer.”

He sighed.

“Don’t feel bad, Babe. There’s always extra credit.”

He smiled. We walked on.

Truthfully, I never did look like those girls. I looked like a boney boy or, maybe, a box with the words THIS END UP stenciled on my forehead. That’s how I know that my husband married me for reasons other than my girlish figure. I believe he married me for my ability to craft fascinating test questions, my penchant for wearing ‘Sweet Honesty’ perfume and pink t-shirts, and for having excellent calf muscles and skinny ankles.

That’s true love that stands the test of time.

Linda (Advanced Placement) Zern