March 2025 SOLC–Day 4
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This is a variation on a common scene in our household.

I’m standing in the kitchen, looking at my phone. I call into the family room, “Hey, Kurt, do you know the name of that bird?”

There’s a long pause, then…”What bird?”

“You know. The one that comes out in the spring. At night. Or at least at dusk. And I can hear its call and you can’t.”

I move into the family room. Kurt just looks at me.

I try again.

“You know! That really cute bird…”

He shakes his head, still not sure what I’m talking about.

“It’s so cute! You know! The one that sort of dances when it moves. Like its body moves, but its head stays still and it’s so funny looking. It bops along…” I move my arms a little bit to demonstrate. Entirely ineffectually. (Also, I don’t think he’s even looking.)

“You know!” I insist. (side note: For some reason, despite all evidence to the contrary, I seem to feel that if I just say “you know” enough, he will.)

“I don’t know….” he responds. (See! It doesn’t work!)

I then remember I’ve been holding a phone with a picture of the dang bird on it all this time. I walk over and show it to him.

“Oh! A woodcock!” he says immediately.

“Yes!” I say triumphantly, feeling victorious in our mutual victory.

And then I have a sudden realization.

“OMG, Kurt! Do you remember that game show? $10,000 Pyramid? The one where there were mystery words and one person gave clues, but they couldn’t use the actual words, and the other one had to guess the words?”

“Yeah,” he says, again looking a bit mystified.

“Well, we would be sooooo good at that game. That’s what we do all day long every day! We give clues to try to find a word we can’t think of! We’re naturals!”

Kurt laughs, then pauses.

“There’s one problem with that though, Molly.”

“What?” I ask.

“Well, we have lots of practice with giving clues, but to win that game you had to be able to come up with the actual words they were looking for.”

Oh.

Good point.

Addendum: And now a little bonus for you, because everyone should experience the joy of watching a woodcock dance:

I’ll leave it to you to imagine what my imitation looked like.