A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

While everyone else is shouting “Bravo” or “Brava” at the end of each aria, and leaping to their feet to offer a standing ovation when the last curtain falls, my husband is applauding sparsely, grudgingly, his sighs often louder than his applause, because he’d prefer to be… watching paint dry, because he’d prefer to be caught in rush-hour traffic, because he’d prefer to be having a colonoscopy.

He is not a whole lot of fun to bring to the opera.

Not to mention that I am expected, for each opera that he attends, to spend an equivalent evening sitting beside him listening to a lecture on gulf Security in Bahrain or someplace like Bahrain, which I have nothing against, except I’d prefer to be… doing our tax returns, except I’d prefer to be caught in rush-hour traffic, except I’d prefer to be having a mammogram.

Defiant and uncompromising, The Don has gone to his death. Undefiant and compromising, my husband and I go home.