Answer v. Reply

Hunneypunkin is a master of non-feedback.  In twenty years of bledded wiss I have yet to wring a straight answer from him.
"What time do you want to leave tonight?"
"I don't know when I'll get off work."
I voiced the necessary question and he spoke in return so I feel as if we've completed a conversation, till seven hours later when I realize he didn't give me an actual answer so I don't know how to plan.
One year, New Year's Day showed up before we had concluded what we were going to do for New Year's Eve.  I'm not making this up.
There was a long period of time where I never had a single night out with Hunneypunkin because you can't tell a babysitter that you're going to need her from sometime between 4 and 8 pm till sometime between 9 and midnight depending on how things go at work.  After that thirteen years, the offspring were old enough to supervise themselves so Daddy and Mama could dig some change out of the couch to go grab a romantic value burger and stay awake long enough to split it in the car while we tried to think up a conversational topic.
Now understand, this is not entirely a result of the "Do Not Commit" chapter in The Super-Secret Manual of Pointless Instructions for Guys.  It's more a side effect of being a superhero.  You just never know when the neighbor lady will get trapped in her car and the Jaws of Life can't get there in time so you have to miss yet another in-laws' combination X-Box Playoff and Character Assassination party because it will take you a couple of hours to get her out with your Leatherman tool, again.  And if you've already told the in-laws you'd be at the in-laws' combination X-Box Playoff and Character Assassination party, they're not going to understand, they're just going to add that to your Failures to Appear list.  And everybody knows that whoever has the longest Failures to Appear list goes straight to the top of the Characters to Assassinate list.  So, it's best to be vague.
Nevertheless, Hunneypunkin and I need to hone our communication skills sooner than later or it's going to be insane trying to coordinate his superhero duties with my Renner/Wilson 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign.