How many toothpicks?

Rain Man: Toothpicks

The Boyfriend is a bit of a savant when it comes to Things Automotive. What others have to study and work to memorize, just comes naturally to him. Need a chart to figure an accurate bore dimension? No, all he needs is a caliper reading and the Pythagorean theorem. And a few seconds to calculate. Care to hear a list of the differences between a ’39 Ford De Luxe and a ’40 Ford standard? He can rattle those off in his sleep. Thankfully, he doesn’t. Or I sleep through it. Just last week, he had me pause a DVD we were watching so he could explain that the steering wheel shown in a Car: Interior scene could not possibly be from the car our characters were just shown getting in to in the previous Exterior shot. When he does things like this, which is frequently, I mutter “246. 246 toothpicks.” It’s in reference to the scene from Rain Man, linked above, in which Raymond is able to calculate at a glance precisely how many toothpicks had been knocked out of a box.

In the kitchen last night while I was serving dinner, The Boyfriend said that he liked the dish I’d put the mashed potatoes in. Without glancing over (because I knew what dish I’d used), I said “Thanks. It’s Fire King. The pattern is called Candle Glow.”

To which he replied, “How many toothpicks?”