“Mm, mm, mm,” Felix said, pushing himself back from the table and rubbing his bloated tummy, “That was so good! You know, say what you want about your ma; she sure cooks a mean tuna casserole!”

His children, familiar with their father’s general lack of  understanding of common colloquial phrases, ignored him and waited semi-patiently until they were excused from the nightly torture that was dinnertime.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Daphne, ever-weary and cynical of her own husband’s blatant stupidity

“Aw, did I do it again? I meant that everyone always agrees that your cooking is just the best!”

Daphne massaged her temples and said calmly, “That’s not what that saying means.”

“Ha! Well I’ll be a Jack of All Trades! What does it mean?”

“Dad,” said his oldest daughter, Karen, “I think you meant to say ‘well I’ll be a son of a gun,’ a jack of all trades is a guy who is good at everything.”

“There I go again,” said Felix, “but what did I say so wrong in the first place, Ne?”

“Ugh, Dad! You said ‘say what you want about your ma’ which basically means that everything she does is the worst!” said his son, Bobby.

Daphne just shook her head. She couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t used to this after their sixteen years together or what, for that matter, made her stay.

“Well, look at me, jumping the gun! Got it wrong again! Sorry, Ne, you know I didn’t mean it.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” said said as she got up and started clearing off the table.

“Dad…” Bobby started, but then gave up. What would be the point in explaining to the man what ‘jumping the gun’ actually meant? He was never going to get it.

“Yes, bud?”

“May we be excused?”

“Surely, right-o! Pip! Pip! Cheerio!” exclaimed Felix.

“Whatever that means,” Karen said under her breath to her brother on their way out of the kitchen.

The kids bounded up the stairs. To Felix, it seemed like they knew he had ulterior motives (as he called them, not as normal people called them) for the evening. It had been too long since he and Daphne had had any alone time together. Months, even, and he couldn’t figure out why. She used to find him so goofy and charming, and now it seemed like she was just irritated. He figured that her irritation was just an effect of their recent lack of intimacy, and he knew how to fix it. She’d be all better tomorrow, or even in an hour, wink-wink.

When they were finally alone, he nestled up to Daphne, who was furiously scrubbing the dinner plates, and said, “Why don’t you put those plates down and let’s go upstairs so you can make me a man of few words?”

She ignored him. Not today.

“Come on, let’s go neck and neck,” he whispered in a gravelly voice meant to arouse her.

She kept scrubbing.

He pulled back a little and put his big, leathery hands on her shoulders and started rubbing. For a moment, it felt blissful and her anger washed away like tuna casserole stuck to a dinner plate.

But, like the tuna casserole on the dinner plate, her anger stuck, especially when he said, “Come on, I’ll give you an arm and a leg, baby.”

She still didn’t answer him. He wasn’t going to give up. He had a mission, after all! He moved his hands from her shoulders down to her hips and pulled himself closer to her, pushing himself up against her so she could feel his eagerness through her dress.

“Hey, Ne, let’s go, I’ll eat your hat.”

She couldn’t believe how far he was going with this. She also couldn’t believe that he wasn’t getting the hint. She also couldn’t believe that she used to be entertained by this display of idiocy.

He pushed himself against her a little harder and said, “Feel that? The plot thickens. Let’s go do this, babe, quick and dirty.”

That was it.

“Oh my GOD!” Daphne said, pushing him back and dropping a soapy dish on the floor, which miraculously didn’t shatter. Small miracles, right?

“What?” he asked.

“That’s not what that means! That’s not what any of those things mean! How can you not know what anything means?”

“Oh, relax! This is me! Free-fallin’ Felix!”

She picked up the plate and actually smashed it now. “THAT DOESN’T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS, FELIX.”

“Golly me! What bird flew into your nest?” he said, picking up the pieces.

“Oh my god, I can’t. I can’t. I have go to.”

She went to the foot of the stairs and called up to the kids that they were going to the movies.

They left, packed duffel bags in tow.

“Well, they sure are taking a lot of stuff to the movies! Ah well, got the house to myself tonight!”

Felix sat down in his la-z-boy with a cold Miller Lite and dozed off, watching a baseball game, waiting for his family to return.