Machinery Doesn't Answer Either, But You Aren't Married to It.

Sometimes she knits and sits,
Sometimes she sits and knits,
And you tell her what you have been doing all day and
you ask what she has been doing all day... and you
speak tenderly of your courtship and your bridal,
And you might as well try to get a response out of an
Oriental idol,
And you notice a spasmodic movement of her lips,
And you think she is going to say something but she is
only counting the number of stitches it takes to
surround the hips;
And she furrows her beautiful brow, which is a sign that
something is wrong somewhere and you keep on
talking and disregard the sign,
And she casts a lethal glance, as one who purls before
swine,
And this goes on for weeks
At the end of which she lays her work down and
speaks,
And you think now maybe you can have some home
life but speaks in a tone as far off as Mercury or
Saturn,
And she says thank goddness that is finished, it is a
sight and she will never be able to wear it, but it
doesn't matter because she can hardly wait to start
on an adorable new pattern,
And when this has been going on for a long time, why
that's the time that strong men break down and go
around talking to themselves in public, finally,
And it doesn't mean, that they are weak mentally or
spinally,
It doesn't mean, my boy, that they ought to be in an
asylum like Nijinski the dancer,
It only means that they got into the habit of talking to
themselves at home because they themselves were
the only people they could speak to and get an
answer.
Ogden Nash, 1929