By Bil Drury
April 22, 2008 09:17 am
—
Hypothetically speaking, marriage is about two people becoming as one. HA! What a bunch of baloney, if I’ve ever heard baloney, this is baloney, and I know baloney, and believe me this is BALONEY!
Look, this “two becoming as one” silliness is all romantic and everything. And it gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of your stomach; makes you want to run right out and rent a cabin, stretch out on a bear skin rug in front of an open fire, snuggle, drink some red wine, and whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ears. But the truth of the marital matter is you are not one, you are two; you are TWO very different people living under ONE similar roof. That’s it. That’s as close to “being as one” as you or any of us will ever get, because quite frankly, there is only so much a couple can merge.
Sure, yeah, we’ve all seen those couples who go out in public wearing matching outfits. But they are the sickening exception to the marital mix. And the day you catch me wearing a pink flower-covered shirt and Bermuda shorts, which are matching my wife’s pink flower-covered shirt and Bermuda shorts, I want you to slowly drive by my house and mercifully shoot me with something really BIG!
But, seriously, though, opposites attract, Men and Women could never be as one because we are too different, we are different in anything that can be different. You name it, and we are different at it. We shop differently; we sleep differently; we watch television differently; we breathe differently; we blink differently; we eat differently; we take showers differently; we drive differently; we are different at doing everything different. And therefore it’s physically impossible for two very different people to become as one without one of the two different people getting hurt in the “becoming as one” process, which usually winds up being the man.
Certain realities of matrimony do not kick in right out of the gate like, for example, after being wed for oh, say, 24-hours, thanks to all that wedding cake you snorked down, you suddenly realize that you have to go to the bathroom, BUT your spouse is in the house. What if you make a (blush) going-to-the-bathroom-related noise and (gulp) she hears you? I could never deal with the humiliation of having to face her about my flatulence, and would have to kill myself.
“Theresa Drury?”
“Yes officer?”
“What made your husband throw himself out of the bathroom window?"”
“I’m not sure. I heard a sound like someone repeatedly stepping on a duck, I banged on the bathroom door, asked him what on earth was going on in there, then I heard the window open, followed by a loud THUD sound.”
“Interesting, I’ll call CSI. This looks like a case right up their investigation alley.”
So great, as if things aren’t tough enough with half your stuff and half your space abruptly invaded by half of someone else’s stuff and space, now you have to start plotting and planning your bathroom excursions in an attempt to cover up natural noises, which transforms the simple natural act of “going” into some sort of military behind the lines covert operation on par with the invasion of Normandy, only slightly more dangerous.
And don’t be fooled: there’s no getting around this restroom reality. You live there, she lives there, you both live there, everybody lives there, and when nature calls, well, you know, can’t hold it in forever. Oh, sure, you can hold it for a while, that is, until you find yourself doubled-over looking like Quasimodo in search of some church bells to ring. But if she doesn’t eventually go out, you’re going to have to go with her IN THE HOUSE. There is no two ways about it. And you will need a plan, like the one I employed the first time I had to use the bathroom with my wife in the house. I had fans going, the shower was on, the faucet was on, there was coughing, throat clearing, sneezing, humming, whistling, medicine cabinet doors being slammed, there was flushing, shower curtain rattling, it was a whole thing.
I even employed my disguise voice, that of a 90-year-old Hungarian peasant woman, just in case I did make a noise. And then if my wife were to ask me what that sound was, I would excuse myself using my fake voice and no one would be the wiser. Well, my wife might have a question or two about why there was a 90-year-old Hungarian peasant woman in her bathroom.
But what I was banking on was that my wife would get confused, step outside into the front yard to make sure she was not in the wrong house. This would allow me enough time to sneak out of the bathroom, slink downstairs into the basement where I will grab some gloves and a rake, and slip outside through the bulkhead and into the back yard. Then I can walk around to the front of the house; meet up with my wife, put on a confused what-there’s-a-90-Hungarian-peasant-woman-in-our-bathroom-you-don’t-say look on my face, while pretending to know nothing about nothing, because, hey, I had been out in the backyard for hours raking leaves. See my gloves and rake?
Okay, anyway, that’s enough toilet talk for this week. Lower the lid, pull up a seat, and join me again next time where we will discuss my second bathroom-noise-preventing plan. I don’t want to give away all my secrets yet, but it has something to do with a cork and super glue.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.