Picking Nits
Husband sleeping through the reunion; Chuck surviving the crash; unopened last package; sunburn recovery timeline; Kelly missing Chuck at the terminal; Kelly moving on quickly
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:34:13Read transcript
- Introduced as an important nitpick: the husband never wakes up despite the maps still in the dining room, her leaving the bed, car commotion and screaming in the driveway.
- An earlier column is reread: a husband in that position would wake at every car door and come out with a shotgun at his wife screaming Chuck's name.
- According to a 2009 listener email (Kyle, College Station, Texas), the husband was awake, letting his wife resolve it, like the Packers waiting out Favre with Rodgers; he is either a moron or a genius who played the long game like Belichick.
- Chuck surviving the crash is doubted: he lurches backward rather than forward, listeners with physics knowledge are invited to email, and the propeller would likely have killed him.
- Whether pulling the tooth was a good idea is debated as a half-suicide move; the verdict on it is unclear.
- Not opening the last package in four years, especially before planning suicide, is implausible; anyone would open it, though the narrative needed it.
- After days sunburned on the raft, dehydrated and with dental problems, Chuck would be hospitalized for months rather than flying home within four weeks; the over-under is 10 weeks, taking the over.
- Kelly would have seen Chuck at the airport terminal from 20 feet away despite her husband trying to block it.
- Kelly dating, marrying and having a child within about 49 months is tight, raising suspicion of earlier chemistry with the dentist and why she and Chuck, in his 40s, were never married; it is good she ends up without Chuck.