I don't know much, but here's part of it

Peggy surpasses me in intellect to a powerful extent; she is easily at home discussing modern poetry and free verse, picking her way through legal and financial documents important to us but as understandable as a Bulgarian bus schedule to me, and there are very few of the "worthwhile" movies and cable tv shows that she doesn't watch.  

So she reads Billy Collins and Louise Glück while I giggle over bawdy burlesque limericks.  She's the one who handles our finances and re-finances our house purchases while I hang around the title company receptionist, talking her into giving me a free desk calendar.  And while she's watching "The Bible" and "Snow White and the Huntsman," I'm upstairs online, listening to The Great Gildersleeve.

Rather

Allen

I will, now and again, engage her in a discussion of the merits of modern free verse.  There are some poets (Ginsberg, Updike, Kerouac, Dan Rather) whose lyrics soar quite well without rhyme.  Allen Ginsberg's Howl is a perfect example; so is Jesus and Elvis by John Updike.  But if you take the first paragraph above and type it thus:

Peggy 
surpasses me in intellect to a powerful extent;
she is easily at home 
discussing modern poetry 
and
free
verse, picking her way 
through legal and financial documents important to us but 
as understandable as a Bulgarian bus schedule to me,
and there are very few of the "worthwhile" movies and cable tv shows that 
she doesn't watch. 

You get free verse. 

And what have you gained?  What, indeed?

I just want to stand up and say that I have learned two things recently that I to share, so that should I die of nepotism anytime soon, I can go to my heavenly reward (and earthly urn) knowing that I passed along these nuggets:

 - If you're like me and enjoy a nice tumbler full of iced tea, you know that sun tea tastes great.  Put a couple of those BA teabags in a tall pitcher of COLD water in the morning, and when you come home for dinner, there's the best tea in town to plunge into, you should pardon the expression.

But here's what I learned:  sprinkle just a tad bit (half a teaspoon or so) of baking soda in there with the water and BA tea bags, and the tea tastes better!  I don't know why, I don't know from chemistry, but it does.

 - Let's say you stopped at the Town Pump to fill the tank with Shell regular on the way home, and you walk into the house with a case of stankhand like you can't believe.  Someone is always getting gas all over the pump handle, and then you bring it home. Those stanky hands!  You try a bar of soap, you try the Palmolive dish soap, you even go to the laundry room and lather up with some Wisk.  And nothing works, and the family asks you to take your dinner out to the garage and share it with the dog.

But now there is hope for the stinky-fingered.  Just wash your hands with toothpaste!  A dab on the palm and some hot water and the whole family will love you again.   And the dog still won't care as long as you give him some kibble.