You know you're in love with the better read when you're scratching your fiancee's back and she says, "Harder, dammit! Fifty Shades of Grey me!"
And you know she might like you when agrees to let you write about it.
Or it might just be I bought her a Kobo, which has facilitated an insatiable appetite for commercial fiction that's as relentless as the Stuxnet worm.
We've had two other literary exchanges that jump to mind. The first revolves around Edmund Lear's nonsensical masterpiece The Owl and the Pussycat.
The second was our Games of Thrones moment, when she told me to have a spat with the crows.
My fiancee loathes all the less-noble, unbeautiful beasts of the air; she finds their flapping and ability to swoop at will inappropriate and frightening.
She's also developed a fondness for the squirrels that hang out in the tree by our deck.
Unfortunately one spring day, she spotted one of the crows pecking at a squirrel on the front lawn. There didn't seem to any reason for it; the squirrel ran for its life as the crow hop-flew behind it, beaking at it like a Harper Tory chasing a stray Enbridge protester.
"Save the squirrel," she commanded.
I went outside, gargled a handful of gravel, donned a cloak, channeled my inner Englishmen and returned as the Sean Bean of the suburbs.
"My southern flower," I growled. "These are the ways of the North. Harsh is our lands, harsh even as the birds and rodents that tread its frost-kissed ground. Meddling with its ways is not our way - let the crow fly as the crow flies, summer blossom."
"Save the squirrel or go sleep with the crow," she said.
So I shooed away the crow and informed it it was not welcome on these lands. So began the spat with the crows.
It escalated the next week when I came home from work to see the crow on the lawn, feasting on the worms uncovered in my pockmarked lawn that is the futile monument to my short-lived crusade against the dandelions.
I shooed the crow off again, only this time he perched on the roof of my neighbour. There was taunting. We eyed each other, the crow and I, knowing the minor disagreement was about to degenerate into a full-fledged feud.
He cawed another double-dog dare.
I threw a stone at him and he flew off screaming in I'll-Get-You-Next-Time-Gadget tones.
Then the other day I was enjoying a beautiful moment on the deck when the squirrel popped by to say hello. We chatted a minute - I complained I was having tempo issues in my golf game, he complained about how hard it was to get a good nut nowadays - when the crow returned.
He was with a friend. They swooped in front of us and then the crow defecated mightily on the deck. Another loop and he alighted to the top of the garage where he sat and laughed with his buddy.
"What the nut!" chittered the squirrel, which is about as much profanity as a furry rodent can muster.
"Lock and load, little friend," I answered grimly, knowing it was war.
My girl knew exactly what to do - she bought me a Super Soaker to douse any crow that came to the yard.
That, of course, is a half-measure. I was playing golf the other day and one of the foursome started complaining about crows, about how their incessant cawing had woken him up in the morning.
He didn't use a Super Soaker.
"So I shot three and left them in the yard, for the others to see," he said.
"That's the only way to get rid of them."
He then addressed the ball and took a swing, when, wouldn't you know it, a crow guffawed in the distance at the moment of impact. The ball started left, hooked, and kept going left, like Adrian Dix on the way to China.
I probably should have listened. The crows have taken a nest in the trees by the road and now they're constantly bickering with the squirrels over the fenceline.
I don't even have the heart to use the Super Soaker. The other day I met another crow on the road. There was a dead black bird before us in the gutter, covered in blood.
We decided on the spot that when you have a spat with crows, you either win or you let it lie. Because, luckily, there's always middle ground.
