Elsah, IL

I am reminded that I am in the Midwest when Jello is served for breakfast, complete with suspended fruit. "This is delicious," remarks the woman by the window at the B&B. She is speaking to her husband. "Is this mango?" she asks him. "I don't know." She takes another bite. "I think it is." She asks Jerry the proprietor. "It is mango," Jerry confirms. Her husband congratulated her. We strike up a bit of conversation. It is just the three of us. Their weekend get away is a ten-year anniversary surprise by the wife. Her parents are watching the girls. I tell them I am out to watch my son play football at the college.
Later that afternoon, after the football game, they return to their cottage. Tim is sitting with me in the garden. They ask about the game and the husband sits down and starts to talk to Tim, mano a mano. Football talk. Manly stuff. He goes on and on, a cigar butt between his fingers; he is a fountain, a stream of talk, sports and college and such, a torrent. I glance at the wife and she is embarrassed. I understand what is happening. He has stumbled across a couple of guys and he has spent a day at the flea market and visiting the quit display and other things la-de-da and he needs male contact. He is going to explode if he goes back into the frilly cottage. We have probably saved his marriage just by being here. He does not want to stop. She tries to interrupt, to plug the dam, but he will have none of it. Tim is distracted, off in his post-game world. I stand and announce that I must catch a plane--which is true--and she pulls him away. I congratulate them once again on the anniversary and we leave.