We hit every red light on the way home from the last regular-season hockey game. Every single one. It was nearly 10:00 on a Saturday night, and the lights had not gotten the memo

My wife, in a tone that does not brook dissent: “What incompetent traffic engineers.”

This is not an unusual comment from her. We both share the impulse, actually. I come at it with sarcasm. She comes at it with how she would fix the problem. Neither approach accomplishes much, but both get to the root of who we are. I default to humor. She sees a problem and intuitively knows how to solve it.

If she could clone herself, she’d dispatch a copy to every corner of society plagued by inefficiency. We’ve had car-ride conversations where she single-handedly fixed healthcare, immigration, and the tax code before we reached the driveway. I realize the world is a lesser place for having only one of her — but if there were an army of her fixing the planet, I’d still only be married to the original. I can barely keep up as it is.

So I couldn’t let her traffic comment go without a small test. “We’re good at making brisket in the oven but not on the smoker,” I said. “Does that make us incompetent?”

Her reply, patient and obvious: “No, dear husband. We are smoking amateurs. We are not incompetent.”

This is the woman I love. Her humor is surgical. It doesn’t land with the same splash as mine, but it challenges me every time — and it’s a daily reminder that I don’t have a corner on wit in this household.

She had also handed both of us an escape hatch before Easter Sunday arrived.

We’ve attempted brisket on the smoker three or more times this hockey season. None of them were shoe leather exactly, but they involved more chewing than I prefer. Yesterday we swallowed our pride, pulled out the oven bag, and went with the hard-to-fail method. Six-plus hours, then a little time in the crockpot while we’re at church.

We may be amateurs in the backyard. At the table today, we’re professionals.