Show Biz And Marriage

I must confess that it is really difficult to describe some of the wacky commercial shoots I work on to the average civilian, let alone my wife.

I have been on sets where we: stuffed an old lady in the trunk of a car so she could bake cookies, had an actor wear a pair of boots made of live cats, and filmed the world’s largest walnut.

We have wedged a Woodie (car) in the middle of the giant donut sign, made it snow in Griffith Park in the middle of summer, and used a real falcon to scare away wild parrots so their squawking wouldn’t ruin the sound takes.

One time we even let a giant cockroach drive a car through a neighborhood.

Oh, there’s more. So much more. But I can’t tell you the actual details of any of those shoots because I have signed hundreds of those highly legal, very threatening, Non-Disclosure Thingies.

So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I was explaining the shoot I just worked on to my wife. That’s Spousal Privilege, right? I think that is a loophole . . .

Normally her “how was your day?” is followed by my sort of mumbled “some guys talked, we worked late, where’s my wine?”

But the last job was very unusual, and I couldn’t resist trying to describe it.

Each day I came home, my wife’s query was followed by something like, “A lady climbed in an M-1 tank and fired a shot,” or “a guy drove a monster truck and smashed two cars to smithereens while trying to parallel park,” or “a family was admiring the gun ports from the inside of an armored car.”

“Why?”

“Um, because the Dodge is a better car?”

“Uh huh.”

Now she thinks I’m making it up.  Apparently I’m getting up at 4:00am to go have a rendezvous with some cheap floozy.  Which is absurd, of course, because what cheap floozy is worth getting up for at 4:00 a.m.? Doesn’t my wife know that I value sleep over any of that extra-curricular stuff?  Oh, and that I love her and only her?  Besides, isn’t “cheap floozy” redundant?  Evidently coming home smelling of sun block and old aviation fuel isn’t convincing her.

So now I’m not going to get my wine until she sees these spots on the TV.

Damn.  I hope they cut this one quickly.