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Quidamed If I Do, Quidamed If I Don’t

Tomorrow, I’ve been informed, I’m going to see Cirque du Soleil. My wife told me this, in approximately the same tone of voice my mother used when she told me I was going to eat my peas, or had better be getting my butt out of bed to go to school.

I’m not sure why the missus was so adamant about it. Unless its the many scores of jokes I’ve told and/or laughed about over the years concerning Cirque du Soleil, and its artsy oddities.

Okay. So that might have something to do with it. Why is it she only listens to me when I’m mocking something? Sometimes, I’m even kidding about it.

“Just exactly how many limber French Canadians does one city fricking need?”

Like a few years ago, within these very virtual pages. I’d just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, and noted that the airport there was littered with signs for their various dozens of shows. If I may quote my six-and-half-year-ago self:

“(J)ust exactly how many limber French Canadians does one city fricking need?”

And:

“Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy watching a woman who can rest her head on her own ass as much as the next heterosexual American male…”

I recall working both of those statements into my standup set for a while. A set, I might add, that my wife may at some point have accidentally seen.

So, okay. One strike for me.

Strike two was probably when she said she might like to go to a show some day, and I asked if we could learn how to say ‘bad touch!‘ and ‘I need an adult!‘ in French first, just in case.

(I never said I was completely innocent in this. I’m owning strike two. This is me owning it. Steeee-rike, all right?)

I can only guess that my third strike came when she found out that their current show was coming to Boston — literally down the street from us, it turns out — and she asked if I wanted to go see them perform ‘Quidam’. In hindsight, that conversation could have gone better:

Me: Isn’t that the guy from Moby Dick?

Her: No. That’s Queequeg. This is Quidam.

Me: Why would I want to watch a circus about a side dish?

Her: *sigh* Not quinoa. QUIDAM.

Me: Is it the broomstick game from your Harry Potter movies?

Her: NO. Now do you want to see it, or not?

Me: I suppose. Just one thing.

Her: What?

Me: Is the hunchback guy actually in it, or is it some artsy concept thing?

Her: Y’know, why don’t I just ask one of my girl friends to go?

Me: That might save us all a lot of undue pain.

Only she was bluffing. She was never going to ask one of her friends. And today I got the formal word that I AM GOING to see Cirque du Soleil tomorrow. So that’s that. My objections be Qui-damned.

Truth be told, though, I think it’ll be fun. Certainly, a spectacle. And definitely different than anything I’d have been likely to catch on TV or see around the city tomorrow. So it’ll be a new experience for me. And that’s cool.

I’m just hoping the ratio of ludicrously bendy chicks to plum-smuggling club jugglers is sufficiently high in this show. Going to a show to placate my wife is one thing. But if some gymnast comes out and eats lunch off her own back — now that’s entertainment.

POSTSCRIPT: I stand corrected. They’ve got a whole troupe of terminally limber performers, and it’s just kind of scary.

I’m not sure I’m going to sleep tonight. Or ever again. Yow.