We're Like Something Out of the Pink Panther Movies.

I spot my husband in the hallways, but I don't look at him. I keep my head down, and pretend not to see him. He's engaged in the same game, and starts whistling.

As I brush by, I "accidentally" graze my arm along his butt. I know retaliation will be an attempt to tickle me, so I draw back and my hands come up into the defensive position I learned in jujitsu (which has been refined by two years of T'ai Chi). Attila the Hub uses both, along with Okinawan Karate, his hand-to-hand combat training, some Push Hands (a Tai Chi offshoot) and good old-fashioned street fighting from his teenaged years.

"Oh, hey, Honey. I didn't see you there," I exclaim.

"Are you all right, Babe? You seem a little jumpy."

"Me? Jumpy? I'm just trying to get into the bathroom there."

"Well, go ahead."

"I'm tired. You can move past me first. Because you trust me, right?"

"Right." Immediately, his right hand comes down toward the ticklish part of my ribs, but I know his moves and offer only a token defense against that hand. The real assault, I know, is going to come from his left one, and I'm ready to block it hard.

I break free, untickled, from his attempt at grasping my two hands together in one of his (it is, of course, fatal to let him accomplish this). I walk quickly to the dining room, the husband in hot pursuit, coaxing me all the time to let my guard down. "Honey, why are you running?"

"I'm not running. I'm walking briskly. I just remembered something I had to get out here," and I roll under the table. I always go low when I can; it's one of my best weapons.

Suddenly, he straightens up and says, "Babe, and you sure there's nothing wrong? I mean, you seem to be crawling around under the dining room table."

"Well, you know. I dropped an earring under there this morning, so I was just retreiving it."

I emerge from the other side of the table, but he's around to that side in an instant. He moves on me then, pinning my arms and tickling that spot between my ribs that makes me squirm. I let him, but when he's done I lead him to the spot at the top of the stairs, place him one stair down from me (so we're closer to the same height) and kiss him long and slow.

"Kato Kato! Not now!" he murmurs in his Peter Sellers/Pink Panther voice, and I give him one more peck on the lips. Then I go off to the bathroom, and he goes downstairs to his den.

When I was in my jujitsu class they always marvelled at my ability to "think on my feet" and perform maneuvers that weren't official jujitsu moves at all.

I wonder how I got good at that.