Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat  –  Earla Hollon

January 22, 2008

He Listened

Earla Hollon

Are you listening to me?
I often accuse my husband of not listening to me when I talk to him in the evenings about my day at work, or about things that I like, or things that I don't like.  Whenever I accuse him of not listening, he will normally repeat the last two or three words that I have spoken.

For a while this fooled me; until one day I realized that he only ever repeated the last two or three words, so I asked him, "What did I say before that?" 

My husband just looked at me sheepishly, he knew I had caught him out.  I often tell him that I'm going to quit talking to him as he never listens to a word I say.  He always just looks at me and repeats the last few words. 

It's easy to tell, that I'm a talker, quick to act or react and impatient.  My husband is a true Texan, slow
walking, slow talking and slow to act. 

On our fifth anniversary my husband handed me a suitably sentimental card and after I had read the card and thanked him for it, my husband gave me a plastic middle finger with a key chain attached to it.  If one
pushed a little button on the finger, they would hear the sound of someone passing gas.  I understand my husband's boyish sense of humor, so I laughed at the noise and told him thanks a lot and then handed the
keychain to him saying "Here you can have it, I don't want it." 

My husband didn't take it however; stating, "No, you want it." 

 "No", I insisted, "I don't want it." 

My husband replied, "I'm serious, you want it." 

When he said that for the third time, I realized something was up, so I looked closely at the key chain and attached to the chrome key ring was a 3 diamond platinum, past, present and future, engagement ring.  I
told my husband

"You do listen to me, don't you"? 

The year of our fifth anniversary, there was a TV commercial airing that I was quite fond of. This commercial showed a young couple briskly walking down a lane, several feet apart from each other, fast overtaking a much older couple that were slowing walking down the middle of the lane and holding hands.
As the young woman passes the old couple, she looks back over her shoulder at them and then at her ring, which was a platinum past, present and future engagement ring.  While watching that commercial I
often remarked to my husband that I would love to have one of those rings, because the 3 diamonds represented the past, the present and the future.  I never really expected to get one, I never realized he was
listening.  

Earla Hollon

ehollon@fulbright.com