When you don't want to talk about where all the money and condoms have gone, you still have to talk about something. When my wife came to lean against furniture in my basement office this weekend, I knew I was going to be treated to a random topic off that list. Even as I steeled myself to hear anything without turning it into a fight, I adored how shyly she looked for a way to begin.

"Those three refrigerator magnets I like so much, that say 'faith', 'hope', and 'love'? Guess which one fell off and got lost?"

Now, from an eyewitness perspective, I'd have no way to answer that, though it's the fridge of my life as well. My wife is the type that will stick anything to an unused square inch of refrigerator, to the point where opening it carelessly will dislodge things. She'd concealed that trait fairly well in the years before marriage, or it would have been something we talked about before taking big steps; at this point, I just quietly stick the fallen things back each time and keep looking for food. I've no mental inventory at all of what's on there anymore - just memories of how we smiled to add some of them. (Frankly, I'm as bad as she is - whenever I get the urge to have fewer things on there, each individual thing I think of removing turns sentimental, as I force myself to actually see it again.)

My recollections of my fridge weren't needed, though. This is the girl of my life, and I still spend the last half of most sentences she starts waiting eagerly to reply, understanding her already. It's amazing how rarely I need to know what she's talking about to know what she's saying.

"Hope," I replied, and she began nodding before I was done with my one-syllable sentence. I shared with her that special how-the-hell-did-we-get-here smile we've been using so often lately. Another straightforward message, delivered via short, simple sentences, drenched somehow in the scent of the most affectionate horror.

(The answer had been so obvious, just through a process of elimination. This is the girl I'd held to me and told "you'll have to have faith for both of us," late one night decades ago, in one of the more Bogart moments of my life. And every woman has, or should have, one man convinced she can out-love anything on the planet - past, present, or future. Neither faith nor love would dare drop out on her.)

I followed the smile with a brisk "So you can't find it then?", already rising from what I'd been doing. We both knew how this was going to go, and we both ran through the conversation quickly in our heads, only bothering to speak every third or fourth line of dialogue.

"It's a really heavy refrigerator."

"Hey, who you talkin' to?"

"Don't hurt yourself."

Thus encouraged, I proceeded to the kitchen, as she stayed behind working on the downstairs chore that had been the real reason she'd come within speaking distance. I attempted to locate the remaining two magnets on the fridge, as a clue to the best way to shift the really heavy thing; thirty seconds later, I just heaved the fridge in a random direction. It moves easily on its wheels, which she almost has to know, so I began my search wondering whether her insult had been intentional, and if not, what the hell she had really been trying to say. I stooped down, examining the muck that builds underneath when kids and drunks handle your fridge, and you don't have the sense to change houses every few years. I looked, and then looked harder.

I couldn't find "hope".

That was bad.

Being trapped in the world's most transparent household allegory ever was awful enough; being unable to make it end happily was simply unthinkable.

The fridge wound up in the middle of the kitchen, and brooms and yardsticks were brought to bear on the problem. The magnet's clever hiding place was in a seam between counter and curling linoleum, beneath dust of its own color. Ten minutes, perhaps, became lost to me forever while I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled areas of my kitchen that honestly should be able to remain decently obscured.

In the end, though, the fridge, the found magnet, and all the other magnets that fall off when you move the fridge, were all back in their places, and the kitchen at least as clean as it was when I'd begun. While putting the broom away, I glanced into the next room at the rose I'd brought her the weekend before. Bloom drooping, petals blackening and curling. I wanted to go sniff it, but I was certain it would still smell like nothing. I have to find a way to give her better roses.

I was able to give her the report of my success, though, when I returned to the basement, and we both got a wry grin out of how tough that had been to find again. We both turned back to what we'd been doing, and that was pretty much how we left it.

We still haven't talked about where the money went, and come to think of it, I didn't even know I'd feel a need for a condom discussion until later that night. Though I suspect weariness-related accounting errors will be the root evil in both cases, I really don't want to find out for sure just yet.

I'm worried to death I'll shake the magnets loose, and be unable to find them again.

I don't want to hurt myself.