Speer Morgan

But then the interviewer asked a little boy…why the tooth fairy didn’t just use bricks to build her house, like everyone else, and the boy said immediately, Because nobody doesn’t have bricks for teeth. And the question I want to ask you, she writes, is why does that make me think of you? Why does that make me think of trying to reason with you?

I knew where this was headed, or should have. Because this is what I did and do, at Kodak and elsewhere: research. For instance, Catrine is from Montreal, and when I met her ten years ago and fell in love, I did heavy research on the city: its history, customs, civic institutions and festivals, restaurants, average high temperature and snowfall, biggest employers and its general feeling about the Quebec question and whether or not to separate from the rest of Canada. I walked around citing obscure facts about Catrine’s hometown, facts she didn’t care about and was unimpressed by, and one day when I was telling her about the origin of Montreal bagels and how they were different from what Americans know bagels to be, she said, “Eric, why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you. Because I wanted to know everything about you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But cut it out.”