Who Knew?

So Dave can pretty much read my mind. Even when I say something quite nonsensical to everyone outside of my head, he can nearly-immediately discern what I actually mean and go from there. This is very pleasant and helpful. I often can not think of the word I mean to say, will turn to him and ask for it, and he can readily (and correctly) provide. Often I'm waving my arms around, pantomiming crazily, trying to get him to know what I'm talking about, and he stares at me like a mental patient. Still he usually figures it out though. Example:

Me: Dave, I want to buy one of those things. (Insert flinging appendages and a wildly wiggling hand.)

Dave: What things?

Me: You know. Those things. (Wiggle, wiggle. Flail. Hand jiggling becomes frenzied.)

Dave: Oh, a four-pronged acrylic hand-held back massager from Bed Bath and Beyond.

Me: Yes, exactly.

I'm telling you, we have a connection. But then sooooometimes there is a disconnect. The other night he was cooking something and mentioned that he wished we had a cleaver.

"Oh, we do," I told him confidently, pointing to the drawer. He emptied the drawer with no luck.

"I don't see it," he said. "What does it look like?"

"It's right there!" I told him. "I stare at it every day." I pantomimed beating someone over the head, making the shape of a cube with my hands as I hurried over.

"Poke-y," I told him. "Metal." (Intensifying head-beating motions as I opened the drawer.) He stared at me, dumbfounded.

"Right here!" I told him, plucking it out from on top. He tried to suppress his chortle.

"Uh, that's not a cleaver," he informed me. "That's a meat tenderizer."

"No, it's not," I said, confused. I stared at it. So clearly a cleaver. Right? No. My whole life I thought that thing was called a cleaver.

Then we were hanging out with some friends about a week ago and they asked if "lemming" was a real animal, for purposes of procuring an extra point in Scattergories .

"Oh yes," I answered assuredly. "Those birds, you know?" I pictured them perfectly in my head. "You know how they say lemmings will all follow each other, right off a cliff? Yes, lemmings are those birds that run right off cliffs."

Dave stared at me like I had just told him I was secretly a man.

"Um, no," he said. "Lemmings are rodents. And they don't really run off cliffs."

I'm telling you, I can still see those lemming birds in my head. Where did that image come from? My whole life, I've thought lemmings were birds. Though he makes a good point- if they were birds, why would they be running? And I guess falling off cliffs wouldn't be so problematic if you had wings.

Who knew?