PUCKERED OUT

No polling data is offered. No experts are quoted. No international study referenced. The people at Dentyne come flat out and say it in their newest TV commercial: The average person spends 20,000 minutes in their lifetime kissing. Again, this is simply an average. Your smooching may vary depending on whether you attend a lot of Greek weddings or have more than 15 grandchildren.

I'm not an overly competitive person, but I do believe in keeping up with the Joneses, who, by the way, are our newlywed neighbors down the street. The Fettermans next door have been married 40 years, so I'm thinking these folks may represent a more realistic role model for me.

I assume I've been rolling along at an acceptable rate up until now, but why not increase my output so my obit can read: Exceeded the standard kissing time by 2,000 minutes. Even my harshest critics would be forced to concede that when it came to lips, I was successful at putting two and two together.

When Mary Ellen came home the other night, I gave her the customary hello, but I realized that if I lingered a few seconds longer in the osculation and then multiplied that time by my predicted life span, I could increase my total production by 20 percent. Osculation, by the way, is the scientific name for kissing. Don't use that word during romantic encounters. It'll have a negative impact on your lifetime total.

After 30 years of marriage, my wife became instantly aware that I had breached the unwritten rule for time spent on the customary "Hi, honey, I'm home from work” kiss.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Is something wrong?"

“Your kiss. There was this delay. You were loitering on my cheek. You do know it's only Thursday.”

The question, of course, is how they ever came up with 20,000 minutes. I did a little math and it looks like if your kissing career spans 75 years, you need to kiss about 47.4 seconds a day to reach this goal. I'm a happily married guy, but there are a couple of days a week that to reach this number I would have to count my relationship with the dog (we're just best friends, I assure you) and my new Big Bertha three wood that gets a little extra lovin' whenever I don't hit a ball out of bounds.

Dentyne has a Facebook page where customers put their kissers right online, revealing true-life stories about kissing. About 12,000 individuals are seeking advice on how to inform loved ones about their halitosis. Actually, it's only 11,258 people. The rest are Beagles, Cocker Spaniels, St. Bernards and the like, put off by humans who insist on going nose-to-snoot without first freshening their breath.

The Facebook site also notes: “You kiss 20,000 minutes in your lifetime. What about the other 40 million moments?” Great. It's bad enough I'm obsessed with maintaining oral hygiene while puckering, but now I find there are a slew of other situations where my breath should be pristine. I wish they had been more specific.

In order for my wife and me to someday reach the national average, I'm really going to need her full cooperation. Last night I told Mary Ellen how beautiful she is and how great dinner was. I think I have a chance of reaching that 20,000 mark, as long as kissing up counts.

A LA CARTE

On the Wolfsie refrigerator, next to a photo of me hugging Goofy at Disney World (I was a mere 57 years old at the time) is Mary Ellen’s list of items to be purchased on her next trip to the supermarket. Needless to say, there is frequent updating, like if we consume the last of the mayonnaise or the dog gets into the pantry and gobbles up all the raisin bran. Our beagle does that on a regular basis. The good news is that it has made him very regular.

Mary Ellen’s list is a model for all Americans who want to eat healthy. There’s skim milk, low-fat cottage cheese, broccoli, skinless chicken breasts, and granola. Here’s the question: If that’s pretty much what the list always looks like, how did all that other crapola we eat end up in our kitchen? Who smuggled in the chips, the hard salami, the doughnuts and the creamed spinach soufflé–which contains an alarming 27 grams of fat? I am the culprit, of course, and that is why I avoid food shopping with my wife. When we do go together, I’m on a very short leash and the chances of getting any treats are zero, even if I beg. I wish my wife would treat me even more like a dog. I deserve it.

We used to go the store together all the time. She thought it was important for our relationship to walk down the aisle making food choices as a couple. She was confusing its significance with the aisle we walked down 30+ years ago. But there’s a huge difference: After I said “I do” in l980, Mary Ellen didn’t say, “I don’t think this is good for you,” or “Are you sure this is what you really want?” and when we kissed during the service, she definitely didn’t say: “You still have plenty of this back home.”

I’m second-guessed about everything I put in the shopping cart. Here are some of Mary Ellen’s favorite expressions:

No one still living eats white bread.

Yes, we do need baked beans, if you don’t count the 24 cans on top of the pool table.

Why are you buying low-fat trail mix bars? You know you’re not going to eat them.

Why are you buying cheese puffs? You know you’re just going to eat them.

Mary Ellen has junk-food radar and more often than not, she’ll locate my hidden cache with just a glance. I do try to sneak things into the basket, but it’s tough to hide a large Tombstone pizza under a can of peaches.  Having to put an item back on the shelf is the most humiliating thing that can happen to a guy—at least in public.

Recently, I ran into a friend at the grocery. “Hey, Dick, doing a little reverse shopping, are you? You must be here with the wife.”

To avoid future embarrassment, I told Mary Ellen that this week I was going to go to the store alone. She said that was fine, and Saturday morning she handed me a sheet of paper.

“Thank you, Mary Ellen, but I don’t need a shopping list.”

“Oh, it’s not a shopping list. It’s a permission slip.”