An elderly couple was together for fifty long years, and their lives were intertwined with that of the quiet routine and of familiar mischief that only many years together makes possible. Their love was uncomplicated, constant and bursting at the seams with the best sort of laughter – laughter that doesn’t come from pledge ceremony; laughter that comes from the ordinary, ridiculous things they did together, every day.
Every morning, at an exact timed manner, the husband would wake up from bed with a dramatic moan, stretch all the limbs, and produce an earth shattering fart. It was never understated; never embarrassed. In fact, after he did this, he followed it with a deep satisfied laugh that bounced on the bedroom walls. His wife, woken up by the time the performance commenced, would head shake and mumble the same line she had been saying since years; One day, you’re going to wet yourself by farting your guts out.
It was a running gag with them–her caution, his laugh, the daily dance of love in disguise of annoyance. However, on one Thanksgiving morning, when the kitchen was filled with the smell of a roasting turkey, and the outside world threatened the coming of winter, the wife found herself in a very naughty mood.
As she was preparing the turkey, her eyes fell upon the bowl of slimy, unpalatable innards – gizzards, liver, bits and pieces that she would either throw away or stuff it back in the turkey. However, this time, she’d had a better idea. With that kind of smile that only a long-married partners next door could ever have, she fished out a handful from the lot and tip-toed into the bedroom. Her husband was sound asleep, snoring gently, totally oblivious to the joke going to take place.
With the sneakiness of a cat burglar, she stuffed the cold, gooey turkey bits into his underwear and slunk back into the kitchen. She didn’t even have to wait for long.
An hour later and right on time, the familiar sound rang out from the bedroom – the loud morning fart, with the split second of his trademark chuckle. But then, something different. Silence. Then a sudden, horrified scream.
The silence in the house lasted for almost a good ten minutes. No footsteps. No muttering. Just stillness.
There she stood in the kitchen, holding back laughter until she could not see because of tears, waiting, waiting for the moment when he would appear. And when he did, it was as she could ever have hoped and more.
He emerged from the stairs ghost-pale, and his eyes were bulging, and his fingers were gross with something no man ever wants to find in his undies. He was speechless for a moment when he looked at her and finally he cleared his throat.
“Honey,” he said slowly, “I owe you an apology”. You were right all this while- I finally farted my guts out”.
Then, raising his hand with undue seriousness, he said “but don’t worry”. By the grace of God and these two fingers, I was able to shove them all back in.
She broke out laughing, such that left her double in laughter , shoulders shaking and streams of tears rolling down cheeks. And press of a beat, he was also laughing. That old, comfortable laugh which rang through their mornings for fifty years.
It was just another prank. The addition of another story to add to the scrapbook of their life together. But it was also an ideal reminder of what made their love so enduring – not the loyalty, not their history with each other, but the humor. The mischief. The happiness of managing to still be able to surprise one another after all these years.
A half-century of wedded life taught them that love was not always candlelit dinners and outpouring of emotions. At times, love was the perfect knowledge of making another person laugh – and, the strength to stuff turkey guts in a pair of underpants just to make a person laugh. On that Thanksgiving morning, in the house that was full of warmth and laughter, she gave them both one more thing to feel grateful for: a story they’d never forget.