Just When He Thought It Was Safe.

According to Patrick, all the plots of my favorite movies can be reduced to "a bunch of random stuff happening, and then it rains frogs." One of our marriage's running gags is when he gets roped into watching one of those films all the way through, because it seems like somebody might do something this time, but then at the last minute, they don't, which triggers a string of obscenities before he stomps off to bed, disgusted.

Last night he sat with me on the couch and watched me play Endless Ocean on our Wii. Between snow days, a sewage emergency, and manuscript revisions being late, mama's happy place is getting harder to find. I've been escaping briefly to this virtual scuba diving game, which lets you wander serenely among coral reefs in an imaginary South Pacific sea, to the sound of your breathing apparatus and Enya-like singing.

Patrick took it in for a few minutes, then asked, "Where are you supposed to go?"

"Where ever I feel like."

"What are you supposed to do with the fish?"

"Just look at them."

"Can you catch them? Do you have a spear or a net or something?"

"I have a camera."

"Look out for the shark! It's going to get you!"

"It can't get me."

"It's not going to eat you?"

"Nope."

"Can you harpoon it?"

"Nope."

"What the hell is the point of this game?

"'There's nowhere to go, there's nothing to get,'" I said, quoting a meditation instructor I had once.

"This is just like one of those (expletive) movies," he said, realizing he'd once again been suckered into wasting time and attention on something would likely end with a rain of frogs, or the underwater equivalent.

He got up, and started walking back to his office, shaking his head in disgust.

"You've got to admit," he said, turning around and pointing at the screen, "this would be vastly more interesting with a few shark attacks."

Really, so would several of those movies. But I'd miss the cursing as the credits roll.