Essays

Calvin Trillin

Incompatible, with One L

Calvin Trillin (b. 1935) writes regularly for The Nation and The New Yorker. In addition he is the author of the following book: U.S. Journal (1971), An Education in Georgia (1971), American Fried (1974), Runestruck (1977), Alice, Let’s Eat (1978), and Killings (1984). The essay that follows was published in a collection, Uncivil Liberties (1982). With wit and understatement he portrays a relationship in which the partners appear to be both compatible and committed.

September 16, 1978

I

 married Alice under the assumption that she could spell “occurred.” She now insists that nothing specific was mentioned about “occurred” in prenuptial discussions. It seems to me, though, that implicit in someone’s making a living as a college English teacher is the representation that she is a speller with a repertoire adequate to any occasion. She must have known that the only person in her line of work I had any experience being related to, my Cousin Keith from Salina, once reached the finals of the Kansas State Spelling Bee. She now says Cousin Keith’s spelling triumph was never spoken of between us. I distinctly remember, though, that I listed for Alice the highlights of our family’s history, as any prospective bridegroom might for his future wife, and Cousin Keith has always been part of my standard Family History recitation¾along with Cousin Neil, who was once the head drum major of the University of Nebraska marching band, and my Uncle Benny Daynofsky, who in his early eighties was knocked down by a car while planting tomatoes in his own backyard in St. Jo. It is significant that she does not deny knowing about Uncle Benny.

      Is spelling the sort of thing that modern young couples get straightened out beforehand in marriage contacts? I wouldn’t bring it up after all of these years, except that, as it happens, I can’t spell “occurred” either. I was forced to look it up twice in order to write the first paragraph, and once more to get this far in the second. Somehow, I had expected to marry someone whose spelling would be, if not perfect, at least complementary to mine. We would face the future with heads held high, and maybe a short song on our lips¾confident that together we could spell anything they dashed out. Before we had been married a month, the real world started to eat away at that fantasy: It turned out that Alice was not very good on “commitment.” I don’t mean she didn’t have any; she couldn’t spell it. I have never been able to spell “commitment” myself.

      I know how to spell “embarrass”¾usually considered by double-letter specialists to be a much more difficult word. I have been able to spell it for years. I planted “embarrass” in my mind at an early age through a rather brilliant mnemonic device having to do with barstools. In fact, not to make a lot out of it, I had always thought of my ability to spell “embarrass” as a nice little facility to bring to a marriage¾the sort of minor bonus that is sometimes found in a husband’s ability to rewire lamps. (I don’t mean it was the only facility I was able to contribute: Although I can’t rewire a lamp, I can bark like a dog and I can blow a hard-boiled egg out of its shell seven times out of ten.) We have now been married thirteen years, and Alice still has not asked me how to spell “embarrass.” Apparently, she has a mnemonic device of her own. I have never inquired. That sort of thing doesn’t interest me.

      For a while, our reformist friends used to urge us to make a list of the words that troubled both of us¾their theory being that some wretched consistency in the American educational system would be further documented by the fact that a husband and wife who went to public schools 1,300 miles apart were left without the ability to spell precisely the same words. Not long ago, an analytically inclined Easterner who came over for a drink when Alice happened to be out of town tried to establish some psychological significance in which words Alice and I were able to spell and which ones we weren’t. “Is it really an accident that neither of you can spell ‘commitment’ but both of you can spell ‘embarrass’?” he said. It has been my experience that when analytically inclined Easterners ask a question that begins “Is it really an accident. . .” the answer is always yes. I wanted to write Alice to describe the psychological analysis of our spelling problem, but, as it happens, the one word she can spell and I can’t is “cockamamie.”

      Converts to the new politics of lowered expectations have told me that I should simply accept Alice’s spelling limitations and comfort myself with thoughts of the many splendid qualities she does have¾the way Americans are now supposed to settle for only two gigantic automobiles, reminding themselves that some people in Chad have none at all. I have tried that. I have reminded myself that Alice can explain foreign movies and decipher road maps. I suspect that in a pinch she might be able to rewire a lamp. But, having come of drinking age in the 1950s, I may be culturally immune to the politics of lowered expectations. I can’t get over the suspicion that a politician who preaches that doctrine is really arguing that we ought to settle for him. I still find myself thinking back on the old-fashioned scenes I had envisioned for our marriage: We are sitting peacefully in the parlor¾after having kissed the little ones goodnight¾and I glance up from the desk, where I have been polishing off a letter to the Times on our policy in the Far East, and say, “Alice, how do you spell ‘referred’?” Alice tells me. Or, on another evening, Alice looks over from her side of the desk (in this version of our marriage, the custodian of an abandoned courthouse in Pennsylvania had sold us an 18^th-century double-desk for $85 including delivery to New York in his brother’s pickup), where she has been composing a letter to her parents saying how sublimely happy she is. She asks me how to spell “embarrass.” I tell her.

Suggestions for Discussion

1.     What is the source of Trillin’s humor? What does the spelling of “occurred” or “embarrass” have to do with this description of a marriage?

2.     Relate the title to the theme of this sketch.

3.     Are the author and Alice compatible? How do you know?

4.     How serious is Trillin about his immunity to “the politics of lowered expectations”?

Suggestions for Writing

1.     Discuss the values of, and obstacles to, marriage contracts or write a marriage contract which reflects your feelings about a satisfying relationship.

2.     Discuss your diminished expectations in a relationship.

      What is the meaning and significance of commitment in a relationship?