Katie and I had the bitterest fight in a long time. And it was actually a bit acrimonious. What was it over? The correct verbalization of the meter of Dr. Seuss’ poetry.
There are so many times that I fail to clear the dinner table, fail to empty the dishwasher, fail to corral Leo, fall asleep at inopportune times, leave smelly socks on the living room floor, fail to discard trash, and leave the boiling pasta unattended. And she never nags me about them. Ever. And yet poetic rhythm was the hill I wanted to die on.
So I’m here to publicly say that because she demands things from me more rarely than babies go a day without crying, I have no reason to put my foot down on how she reads Dr. Seuss to Leo. I concede to my wife and her position that Dr. Seuss’ work, though acknowledged to be full of bouncy meter, can be read without the typical stressed and unstressed syllables.
As I dropped her off at work the morning after we fought the Great Poetics War of 2018, she gleefully confided her deep love for me in a few lines full of bouncy iambs—a performance that would even make Shakespeare proud.
The Marriage Abbey 
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