Rosemary Langford’s whimsical love song about her grandparents’ fifty-year marriage is not only appropriate as a drop-in for fast-approaching Valentine’s Day. It’s an accurate description of the institution of matrimony, which I’ve found as mysterious and unfathomable as Langford has. “Whose idea was it,” she asks midway in her piece, “[that] we should join forces with another person whose job it is (we believe) to provide everything we've ever wanted?. . . Might that be asking a little too much?”

If Adam and Eve were our first married couple, they sure had their problems. Langford’s grandma, perhaps not so differently from Eve, may have been guilty of deception when she contended that her husband tried to kill her—twice!

You’ll get to hear the genesis of these events, along with some music playing softly in the background. In every sense this is a “fully-produced audio essay”: it’s upbeat without being mawkish, its oral delivery is flawless, and its script reflects the considerable smarts of its producer.