Note: Carl posted this article to our mailing list in response to a sigline suggesting that relationships should come with little black boxes, so after a breakup you can figure out why it crashed and burned.

No, I think a relationship black box would be a bad idea. The data in the black boxes is frequently not enough to tell what happened without lots of interpretation. To get the answers, you'd have to have a team from the National Relationship Safety Board come in and completely reconstruct the relationship in a big old hangar, and put out a report about a year after the breakup. No, I think much better would be one of those "instant replay" shows like they've got in sports:

"Hi. Welcome to Monday Night Breakup. I'm Tom Buttrash."

"And I'm Wyatt Bland. Tonight we're watching Tony and Tina's breakup."

"That's right, Wyatt. And what a breakup it is. Here we can see the opening moves -- Tony is staying out late with his buddies again."

"A classic gambit. And what's this? Tina is responding with the traditional, some might say unoriginal, 'affair with the friendly co-worker' gambit."

"Ooh. Tony didn't like that one little bit."

"No, Tom, I should say not."

"We'll be back to see Tony and Tina fighting about money in our next >segment. But first, a word from our Sponsors."

"I've had it. I want a divorce!"

"A divorce?"

"That's right, a divorce! I'm getting a lawyer."

"I'll represent you, ma'am. I'm Willis Badger, Divorce Lawyer. And we'll take this bastard for everything he's got!"

"Has this ever happened to you? You're enjoying another quiet evening with the spouse, fighting about some silly little thing, when he or she gets a lawyer involved? You don't have to suffer through the bother and indignity of a trial any more. Get ReamAway, and never be reamed again!"

"Oh, no! I'm melting!"

"Oh, darling! I'm sorry I got a lawyer involved!"

"That's okay. I'm sorry I spent the kids' college tuition fund on a bass boat."

"Let's go have sex, right now!"

"Yeah. Make up sex is the best sex there is!"