The World’s Most Boring Couple

 

  Once upon a time there was a man and woman who lived together. No one knew for sure if they were married or just roommates because they never touched- never sat next to each other, and I suspect they may have had twin beds in their room so they didn't have to sleep together.

  The man was the talker of the pair. He never said much that was interesting, which was made obvious by the way the woman never listened to him, and barely responded. They kept lots of pets but were always annoyed with them. It's as if the animals were there so the man and woman could yell at the them instead of each other.

  When they did have conversations with each other it was always about the animals. If they ran out of things to say about them they would talk as if they were the animals. For example, if the woman were yelling at the dogs to get out of the kitchen, she would then say "but MOM!", as if she could read their minds, and the man would laugh hardily, as though it were the first time she'd spoken for them, even though she did it every day.

  They kept very rigid schedules. Every day was the same as the day before. Well... there were minor differences- different food, different clothes, and sometimes they cleaned or did laundry; all the things people do so they appear as though they're trying. They were a bare minimum kind of couple. Actually, they were below bare minimum.

 The phone rang all day long and they wouldn't answer because they knew it was someone wanting money they didn't have.  I mean... they would have it if they didn't spend it on crap they didn't need, but they were too boring to go out and find free stuff to do to keep them entertained, so they had to buy lots of processed junk food to get high on, and lots of cable channels to keep them from having to look at each other. Then there was the expense of all the annoying animals they kept to fill in the gaps.

  They paid for a house much bigger than what they needed, so they rented out one of the rooms in it so they could have more money to avoid paying their debt off with.  Their cars were getting worn out, but they just let them fall apart because they wanted to build a chicken coop and buy a bunch of rabbits, and they spent up all their tax return money for the building supplies.

  It was a single income household because only the woman worked. The man just sat on his butt most of the day because he had ruined his body after years of abusing and taking it for granted. He was poor white trash living life out as a statistic- not disabled enough to draw a check off the government, mind you, and not old enough to get his pension. He had a thick county accent that screamed rural Texan, and he was a major slob if ever there was one. Home cut hair and chewed up clothes, with a bulging gut and missing teeth.

  Yes, they voted for Trump. Of course they did. They were white, middle aged, southern Christians- from Small Town Texas, and Trump was going to put more money in their pockets so they could keep running on that consumer wheel, while their debt continued to mount and their lessons continued to go unlearned. He spoke their kind of language. The language of people who are apathetic to the world outside their self-centered little bubble. Too lazy to use to challenge their brains to learn new information and grow from the experience.

  Neither one have ever left the country and they probably never will. They may not even travel outside of Texas, if I'm honest- or travel too far from their boring dirty house, in their boring dirty neighborhood. And they'll never have people over to visit because they have no friends. Their son will never sit down with them for a meal even though he lives in a shack on their property. They'll just robotically live out their sad existence- like sleep walkers in a coma.

THE END