A Marriage With More Bite

Harold and Edna, married for 47 years, had settled into a nightly routine as predictable as their creaky bedsprings: he’d snore by 8:30 PM; she’d replay Golden Girls reruns in her head until dawn. But tonight, Edna felt restless.

“Harold,” she poked his shoulder, “remember when you’d hold my hand all through dinner? Even when I ordered the garlic shrimp?”

Harold, halfway into a dream about mowing the lawn, groaned. Without opening his eyes, he flopped a hand over hers like a dead trout. Edna frowned.

“And remember,” she pressed, “how you’d kiss me goodnight? Properly, I mean. Not like last Tuesday when you aimed for my cheek and got my ear.”

“For cryin’ out loud, Edna,” Harold muttered, but he pivoted and planted a kiss so quick it could’ve been a subpoena. Edna rolled her eyes.

Undeterred, she nudged him again. “And then you’d bite my neck! Like that time at the drive-in—”

“OH, FOR THE LOVE OF—” Harold launched upright, sending the cat screeching off the bed. He stomped toward the hallway, bathrobe flapping like an angry flag.

“Where’re you going?!” Edna barked.

“TO GET MY TEETH!” he bellowed.

Edna blinked. Then, for the first time in years, she snorted. A real, snort-laugh. Harold paused in the doorway, dentures already half in, and caught his reflection in the hall mirror.

“Y’look ridiculous,” Edna wheezed.

“You started it,” he grumbled… but the corner of his mouth twitched.

They fell asleep an hour later, his dentures gleaming on the nightstand like a trophy, her hand resting on his bald spot.

Moral of the story:

Marriage is 10% romance and 90% not taking yourselves too seriously. And maybe keeping your teeth handy.