Aldous Bood is a professor of Paleo-Linguistics at a nearby university. Short, thin, and stooped, he is known for being well-intentioned but boring. His wife, Dottie, is a huge woman, loud and overbearing, and favors garish floral print dresses. She takes every opportunity to put Aldous down in public, and their neighbors are used to hearing her screaming at him at the top of her lungs when nights are long and tempers are short. Aldous puts up with it as best he can - it is the way of things.