Marriage and failed telepathy

My husband is a romantic.  This is not always as cute as it sounds.  He expects that as his soul mate I should read his mind.  Why should he waste time with trifling communication when I should simply know what he is thinking?  This sometimes leads to disappointment on his part.  For example the day that I have not packed a picnic when he has mentioned in passing that he would like to “do something” over the weekend.  Clearly the problem lies with me.  Silly me, I expect dialogue along these lines :

Me : What do you want to do tomorrow?

Cliff : I would like to go for a picnic at the botanical gardens.

Me : What time would you like to leave.

Cliff : about 11 am

This form of communication is clearly mundane and superfluous, not to mention restrictive to my romantic husband.  What’s wrong with telepathy?  I must be partly responsible.  I have been known to give him the impression that I know his mind.  I do often have the ability  know what’s going on in his head, which he finds somewhat unnerving.  These occasions have however been instances where it is simple to match his character and behaviour to situations.  This is not a super power, it is simply woman’s intuition and common sense.  As a rule I am a mere mortal when it comes to arrangements.  I depend on dialogue.  I depend on communication which includes dates, times and destinations.  He on the other hand, has an aversion to sharing specifics when it comes to plans.  He must equate this to giving up state secrets which hold life and death in a fine balance.

If he were to impart a departure time on Sunday of say 9 am, I would at least know to add 2 hours and work around that.  Then when just prior to the specified departure time he heads into the garden or workshop for a 5 min job (after all his time on earth this intellectual giant of a man still expects every job to take 5 mins)  I would know that 2 hours later he will emerge and start pacing at the door, muttering that he always has to wait for me.  In the interim when he heads off to tackle his 5 min (2 hour) job, I assume that he has decided to stay home for the day.  I’m in the mood for a fruit cake which takes half an hour to prepare and bakes for 2.5 hours.  We end up not going out and naturally it’s all my fault because I did not read his mind.

This is a minor example, things get more complicated (and disappointing) when  he has said  that he would like to “go away” at some point during a 3 week school holiday.  Due to telepathic failure on my part I don’t know that this entails a self catering trip to a far-flung destination, involving planning pre-cooked meals and packing.  He is then let  down when 24 hours  before his top-secret expedition I am not fully prepared and have made other plans which fall on the departure date.

This was written in response to the writer’s bootcamp challenge with the prompt “Dialogue”