Honeymoon Salad

My husband, Bill, remembers the strangest things.  He knows the lyrics to old songs I never heard of, or all the words to songs I have long forgotten.  He also recalls rhymes, jokes, and one-liners from waaaay back in time and from eras before he was even born.

We can be driving along or drifting through life in serious contemplation when all of a sudden, off he will go, and he never fails to surprise me.

Yesterday was a quiet, lazy day and we were deciding whether to eat out or stay in for dinner.  We both preferred to stay home but I announced I had run out of ingredients for a proper salad.  Note:  We have salad with practically every meal.

“What do you mean we are out of ingredients? Bill asked.

“Well, I have no tomatoes, no peppers, no carrots, and no dressing. I’m out of everything except lettuce.” I answered.

“Oh well,” said Bill, “We will have a Honeymoon Salad.”

“What?”

“You know – a Honeymoon Salad.”

“And what may I ask is that?

“Lettuce Alone.”

I am fairly thick about things as obvious as getting it, so this took a minute for registration.  And then I began a round of hysterical laughter.  Let Us Alone!  Honeymoon Salad!  Aha!  I get it!  And then I could not stop laughing.  I was still laughing today when I got to the grocery store for the other ingredients.

I don’t know how Bill remembers such things, but the oddest rhymes, ditties, tunes, and one-liners are lurking in his usually serious engineering mind.  It is almost as if he has lived another lifetime in another era with another wife.

You never heard of a Honeymoon Salad?  Me neither.  Well, I looked it up and it is, indeed, an old old joke.  In fact, in 1856, the London humor magazine, Punch, wrote that “Salad for the Solitary is lettuce alone.”

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