Verses, Vacuums, and a Verdict

Writing for a living is a profession fraught with hazards, almost invisible to the naked eye, and perilous to domestic tranquility.

The uninitiated might imagine these hazards as writer’s block, a scathing review, or a paper cut. But let me assure you that the gravest dangers lurk not in the critics’ pages or spilled blood but in one’s household.

Case in point: I recently embarked on the ambitious endeavor of writing a song—a task that requires–as all musicians know–first crafting a poem. A poem needs structure, rhyme, and the vague air of something you will regret sharing with the world later. I had dutifully scribbled my fledgling lyrics on a scrap of paper, one of those indiscriminate squares torn from an unpaid bill, and set it aside for further contemplation.

Fate, however, had other plans.

Enter Mary, my dear wife, whose cleaning zeal is matched only by her suspicion of anything resembling a secret. She appeared before me suddenly, a tempest in human form, brandishing my lyrical scrap as though it were Exhibit A in a trial where I was both defendant and jury.

“Do I have to worry about this?” she demanded, her tone suggesting that I had already been convicted and sentenced to a night on the couch. I took the offending scrap from her hand and read it with the gravity of a man reviewing his last will.

The note, in my cursed handwriting, read:

“I know you’re married and don’t like me.
You know that I’m married, and that makes us even.
I’m living at the corner of Mercy and Highball Street.”

Now, let us pause here for a moment. To a writer, this is the skeletal framework of a verse—rough, unpolished, and reeking of potential. To my wife, however, it was something altogether different: a confession, a declaration, and an invitation rolled into one.

I met her eyes with the sincerity of a man pleading for his life. “It’s just a bit of a song lyric I’m working on,” I said. “You’ve saved it from certain oblivion. Thank you.”

Mary, God bless her, let out a sound that could only be the bastard child of a sigh and a growl. Then, with a shake of her head that conveyed both exasperation and cautious relief, she retreated to the garage to resume her battle with the vacuum cleaner.

As for me, I now regard that scrap of paper as though it were a loaded pistol. It sits on my desk, mocking me with its potential to spark another marital misunderstanding or, worse, an actual conversation about my creative process. I dare not keep it, yet I cannot burn it. Instead, I do what all writers do in times of crisis: procrastinate and hope the problem resolves itself.

Such is the danger of the written word—not the writing itself, but the treacherous moments when it falls into the wrong hands. In this case, those wrong hands belong to a woman who angry-vacuums her car with all the fervor of a cat suddenly mad about getting a belly rub.

And so, I cautiously proceed, knowing that the line between poet and suspect is thinner than I would like.