NOTE: I reedited this piece on March 4 to correct my misspelling of a Molly Tackism. The comments on this piece, below, show where Molly corrected me (very politely, of course). I decided to tweak it to get it right.

Smith Men Fall in Love with Strange Women

This past weekend is exhibit A.

First off, let me introduce you to my wife, Amanda the Vicious Mouse Slayer. Seriously, she's like the anti-matter version of some character in Aesop's Fables.

We had a mouse problem last year. We weren't drowning in them, by any stretch, but we did have a couple of the little bastards scuttling across our floor last winter. One even chewed the corner off one of my Superman comics (I KNOW!).

This really, really upset Amanda (the infestation, not the comic chewing). She was very much opposed to sharing her apartment with vermin. She already had me to put up with. So we did the traps ... at first we were reluctant about the cruelty, but once the mice started eating the peanut butter without disturbing the traps we began to imagine new, crueler ways to torture and kill these invaders. We did manage to fell one in a snap trap. But apparenty he had friends. All the same, we made a concious decision to refer to "the mouse" as if there were only one. Using the plural would be to accept that we were potentially outnumbered. We named "the mouse" Arvin, after Arvin Sloan, the villain on "Alias." We also insisted that Arvin was male, lest any baby Arvins might appear.

By spring, the promise of new grass seeds outside apparently drove Arvin out of the Res. Halls and we have not seen him since. This winter has been Arvin-free.

But Amanda remains vigilant. One night, I was awoken by her wildly flailing her legs in bed, as if she were running in place. Once we were both awake, she explained to me that she'd had a dream that there were mice in the house and she'd been attempting to run away from them.

See what I mean about strange women?

I might add here, by way of further example, that Amanda finds it hilarious when she refers to Tuesday, when I have my New Play Workshop class at Brandeis, as "Jewsday." She thinks Brandeis, being a Jewish school, should give us Jewsday off ... Look, I can't complain, I knew she was insane when I married her.

But back to the mice ... Last Friday night, we were walking home from dinner and something scuttled across Amanda's foot. It seemed just to be a leaf, but Amanda leapt up in surprise. Apparently, she landed on "the leaf"'s skull. Oh, and it was really a mouse.

That's right. Amanda accidentally stepped on a mouse and killed it. Some passersby and I debated whether we needed to deliver a killing blow to put Arvin out of his misery. But by the time we'd decided, the death throws had ended. The mouse lay dead and Amanda was victorious.

Amanda, after her initial shock and concern that there were now mice guts on her shoes, was very proud of herself. Any minor argument we have had since then has been resolved by her reminding me that she killed a mouse.

My brother, Abe, has been seeing Molly Tack for two years now. We think he has done very well for himself, as Molly is brilliant, beautiful, and, of course, completely deranged.

There is a peculiar language Molly uses ... a dialect of English, perhaps a Creole ... I'm no linguist.

As you may know, there are over a hundred definititions, in English, of the word "set" it is a verb, a noun, and an adjective. Molly puts that to shame with her own use of the word "fussy," it can be good, bad ... indifferent. All things are fussy and fussy is all things.

Molly also coined the term "Sleep Marines." One night, she had fallen asleep, fully clothed, while studying. Abe tried to wake her so she could put on pajamas, etc., but she refused, steadfastly insisting that she was in the "Sleep Marines."

But my new favorite Mollyism is one I learned about over the weekend. Apparently, the word in Molly for "breakfast" is "slickby's." No, I don't know why.

Slickby's are, as you know, the most important meal of the day. And every year, the Best Slickby is given the Slickby Award.

What? You haven't heard of the Slickby Awards? Of the race for Best Slickby? How Fruit Salad won the Slickby for Best Supporting Slickby? How Muffin won Best Slickby and thanked Blueberry, Grill, and Powdered Sugar?

(yeah, I'd never heard of grilling a muffin either)

Molly feels very sorry for Hot Chocolate, who is always nominated for Best Drink, but never beats out Coffee and Orange Juice.

When Abe told me about this, I had a hard time remaining upright. I was THAT doubled-over with guffaws. He has since pointed out to me that it's a bit weird that Slickby's win the Slickby Award for Best Slickby. After all, we don't give Movies the Movie Award for Best Movie. But, hey, if "fussy" can have a hundred meanings, then why not this?

As you can see, Abe and I are very lucky men.

Oh, by the way, laughing about Slickby's was very nice on Saturday, since the reason Amanda and I had come to Providence had fallen through. My father was also along, since he's in town for some poetry readings and auditions. We'd all gone down to see Abe perform with his comedy troup. The Brown improv group is called -- what else? -- Improvidence. They were hosting a group from Rice that night. I still can't believe that between me, Abe, and my father, it took us hours to make any awful "Brown Rice" jokes.

So we gathered in the auditorium for a 9:00 show. Around 9:10 were weren't too suprised that nothing had started yet. It seemed par for the course with a college performance. 9:20 seemed a little over par. At 9:30 the students taking tickets came in to say, "We've searched the entire building. We can't find them." "You can't find the Rice group?" asked an audience member. "No. We can't find any of them."

People started leaving, getting their money back, etc. We were getting a little worried. But what could we do? They couldn't ALL have been in a car accident. Even if one of them had to be rushed to the hospital, wouldn't they have left a message or something?

We were about to look around the exterior of the building when somebody asked the security guard on duty if she'd seen the people leave.

Please keep in mind that this woman was sitting there, through ALL OF THIS. She'd seen people walking out with confused looks on their faces, talking about the groups not showing up, looking for people, etc.

"No, they never signed out," said the guard, then as if an afterthought, nothing which could possibly have any bearing on what these annoying people were bothering her about, "Oh, there are some people stuck in the elevator."

That's right. All fifteen members of both groups had been stuck in the elevator ... FOR AN HOUR. The security guard KNEW THIS, but didn't feel the need to tell anybody about it. Help was on the way, but it was taking it's sweet time. Of course, none of their cellphones worked inside the lift.

So, jokes abounded about having to deliver a baby, how they spent the time reminiscing about previous episodes, all the classic sitcom elevator schtick.

Now, if I had to be stuck in an elevator with anybody, I would probably choose improv comedians. Well, good ones, anyway ... But still, not the evening they envisioned.

So the audience was gone and the actors were covered in sweat and frustration (Abe was worried everyone would think they'd played some prank, which isn't their style), so there was no show.

Luckily, I got all my laughs from the Slickby Awards.

So, that's my entry for Jewsday. I have to go make some fussy slickby's for Arvin.