Melissa Balmain

Your TV cable’s on the fritz. Your Xbox is corroded. Your iPod sits in useless bits. Your Game Boy just imploded. Your cell phone? Static’s off the scale. Your land line? Disconnected. You’ve got no mail—E, junk or snail. Your hard drive is infected. So here you idle, dumb and blue, with children, spouse and mother— and wish you knew what people do to entertain each other.

The afternoon we left our first apartment, we scrubbed it down from ceiling to parquet. Who knew the place could smell like lemon muffins? It suddenly seemed nuts to move away. The morning someone bought our station wagon, it gleamed with wax and every piston purred. That car looked like a centerfold in Hot Rod! Too late, we saw that selling was absurd. And then there was the freshly tuned piano we passed along to neighbors with a wince. We told ourselves we’d find one even better; instead we’ve missed its timbre ever since. So if, God help us, we are ever tempted to ditch our marriage when it’s lost its glow, let’s give the thing our finest spit and polish— and, having learned our lesson, not let go.