A Chortling We Will Go

When I arrived home today Swamette was sitting on the floor in middle of the family room. She was surrounded by bulging shopping bags and she was chortling incoherently. As every married man knows, it is not a good sign when your wife is chortling! Swami has no idea what chortling is, but he knows it when he hears it.

Since first slithering out of the prehistoric ooze, there are two things that the primeval male brain knows when he hears a female chortling: 1. He should begin slowly backing away; 2. The chortler has just returned from shopping. Some scientists believe that chortling is a vestigial sound of frustration made by female lifeforms who had learned to shop even before they had arms to carry the packages in.

In this case the Swamette had spent (spent being the operative word) the day with a friend. Every year these two inveterate shoppers take it upon themselves to do whatever is humanly possible to re-invigorate the U.S. economy. To the best of my knowledge they have single-handedly kept the economy from sinking into a depression for at least the last 15 years.

Swami has to run. He hears chortling again.