And The Two Shall Become One Brain....

It is, of course, a well-observed fact that people who've been married long enough start to think alike.

Now, I'm not sure if this is because their heads just get progressively rewired the longer they're married, although that's certainly the case; or if it's more a case of the spouses (spice? I've never figured that plural out properly) getting to know each other well enough that they can predict, "If hubby could see what I'm seeing right now, he'd say this." And by the time you get to that point, you're thinking what the other person thinks, and he's thinking what you're thinking, and you might as well have one head.

Tonya and I have always wondered how long it would take for us to wind up with one head, seeing as we started out so different. Nevertheless, there were ominous signs, even within the first two years of marriage:

Her: So we had to study various theologian guys in my classes, including that German guy... the one whose name starts with an S....

Me: Schopenhauer?

Her: Yes! That's it!

[brief pause, followed by an involuntary shudder as both people get a sudden, serious case of the heebie-jeebies.]

Well, we had another one of those moments today.

Next month the town of Fair Oaks (just south of here) will be holding their annual Chicken Festival--apparently an event of some importance to the good citizens of that august town. And they have placed posters and billboards up all over town with their logo:

Now, the thing is, we never see this logo except when we're bundled into our minivan, with three wiggly kids in the back demanding attention, as we're madly trying to drive somewhere in hopes that we're not late to wherever it is we're going. And the posters and billboards with this image on it aren't very large, so we only actually see these posters for a few seconds at a time, at a distance, while we're preoccupied with something else.

Which means we don't always see what we're supposed to see.

(Side note: I remember once, about twenty years ago(!), glancing at the TV while a commercial came up for a local Chinese restaurant named Hunan Lions. I only saw the image for a fraction of a second. It was a few seconds later when my brain actually processed the image that I saw, and by the time it deciphered all that weird sensory input, it had decided that what I'd really seen were the words "Human Loins". Boy, that caught my attention....)

So anyway, my wife and I have been seeing this logo with a chicken standing next to a tree. And we'd both noticed it. And, it turns out, we both saw the same thing:

Me: You know those Fair Oaks Chicken Festival posters we've been seeing?

Her: Yeah?

Me: The ones that have the picture of the chicken standing next to the tree...

Her [grinning]: that actually looks like a head....

Me [grinning too]: of a lion or bear or some other kind of carnivore...

Her: that looks like it's about to eat the chicken...

Me: which is, of course, completely oblivious to its impending doom.

And this sent us into a fit of giggles. And now, every time we see one of those posters, we can't help but see a very cute-looking bear about to eat the chicken, and we can't keep straight faces.

Anyone else see this, or is it just us?

And if it is just us, then Tonya and I are further along the road to one-brainedness than even we had feared....