After a couple has been together for a while, they develop a rhythm that resembles a comedy team. Burns and Allen, Martin and Lewis, the Smothers Brothers, Penn and Teller or Doug and Cathy. The last time Doug and I attended a meeting together, a dozen people watched as Doug began making a passionate speech about something and I cut him off with my pantomime of a soap box. We’ve done our “Doug can’t make food decisions” routine at restaurants and “Cathy gets lost in the driveway” routine at family gatherings.

Yesterday, Doug drove me downtown to pick-up a piece of Sarah’s artwork that was on display at the school board office all summer. On the way home, we had what truly was the least destructive and most comical auto accident ever. In Doug’s uncharacteristically brief explanation of the two-hour roadside theater production, he failed to mention our stand-up routine for the police officer. While the officer with the tough demeanor of Tam (without Tam’s great hair) quizzed Doug and the very sweet girl who bumped us, Doug was asked to list our passengers and their place in the car. Doug started out listing the arrangement but got detoured and started explaining why Evan and Amy were not in their usual seats (carpool) and where Molly (our dog) was sitting in the car. I interrupted him, we bantered and the strictly business officer grinned while the poor girl whose car got hit while we were waiting for the police to arrive actually snickered. The rest of the day was spent performing our routine for our children and Twitterers. Doug flagellated himself and bemoaned his inability to leave the road and avoid being hit in the time between hearing the tire squeal and the bumper’s impact. Apparently he thinks he drives a cartoon car that can go from an almost complete stop with the road in front of him completely blocked to a sideways parallel park in a millisecond. I might be giving new meaning to backseat driving. “That car is following too close. Pull over and let them pass us.”