“It isn’t just that I married a...

“It isn’t just that I married a couch potato and a TV sports addict,� Marge was saying. “I married a cliche.�

What started it all was that she’d heard that the Royal Winnipeg Ballet is offering a mixed repertory program, including several Los Angeles premieres, at 8 p.m. Friday at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Tickets and information: (310) 825-2101. It’ll be the Canadian dancers’ first performance in this area in 10 years.

And in my usual smart-aleck way, I told her they’d better be better than good.

“This isn’t hockey,� I said. “They sent Wayne Gretzky down here, and we all turned out to see him and said: ‘Wow, what’s this cold white stuff? Ice? And this red stuff splattered on it? Blood? Fantastic.’ But this is different. No city in the world’s got tougher ballet critics than we have right here in L.A.�

“Like you, I suppose,� she said.

“Like me. I’ve seen the Lakers. What do you call them if not ballet? Not today’s Lakers, but geez, Kareem, Magic, Nixon, Wilkes, Cooper, Worthy, Scott . . . remember? How they used to fast break, zap, zap, zap, so you could hardly follow the ball? Showtime! No way Winnipeg can match those guys, even with a Royal in their name.�

“You’re hopeless, Charlie.�

Marge has got me wrong. I’m not one of these guys who think ballet dancers are sissies. I respect them. I do. I know they’re in terrific shape. This guy Rudolf Nureyev, who just died, had legs on him that wouldn’t quit. He could have dunked over the backboard , probably . Too bad the NBA never drafted him.

Still, even Nureyev never had anybody fouling him when he tried to do a triple pirouette or whatever. He never had to rebound against Wilt or drive the lane against Hakeem Olajuwon, or face 10,000 crazies in the Boston Garden.

“OK, we didn’t have anybody in frilly white tutus,� I said, “but we did have the Laker Girls.�

“Forget the Laker Girls,� she said. “You wouldn’t recognize culture if it sneaked up behind you and took all your beer nuts.�

Meanwhile, I was imagining how Chick Hearn, the Voice of the Lakers, would describe, say, “Swan Lake�:

Princess Odette brings the ball up court . . . yo-yoing up and down . . . to Siegfried . . . back to Odette . . . collides with the evil magician Rothbart . . . no harm, no foul . . . SHOOTS from three-point range . . . in and out, heartbreak!

“Charlie,� Marge said.

Or “Romeo and Juliet�:

Scramble for the loose ball . . . Mercutio comes up with it . . . cross-court to Romeo . . . who fumbles it out of bounds . . . he was busy trying to wave to Jack Nicholson in the front row . . . tough break . . . Capulets’ ball . . . in-bounded . . . INTERCEPTED by Juliet . . . alley-oop to Romeo climbing the balcony . . . slam DUNK!

“Charlie!�

But when I finally looked up, she was gone. And so were my beer nuts. Geez, do you suppose. . . ?

Couldn’t be.