For Richer for Poorer, In Sickness and in the Ballroom

As I head unwillingly into my late 20s, the number of friends and acquaintances I have who are married seems to grow exponentially. I know a few people who are working on their second or third marriage and are just barely into their third decade. Marriage has always been ubiquitous, sitcom marriage episodes are always a hit and I can think of several kindergarten peers who eloped on the playground, but it is now storming down my door. I have come to accept this; I have resigned to the fact that any relationship that makes its way past the sixth month mark is fair game for marriage. There are definite plusses to this. Weddings. Weddings are fantastic, but like so many other things, their fantasticality is contingent on their budget. Seeing two dear friends who are deeply in love have a vine tied around their hands in the middle of the woods capped with a dandylion wine toast? Murder me. Watching two people who you know will cheat on each other get married in a palatial hotel ballroom with an open bar? The only thing that would make it better is if their inevitable divorce was an equally lavish affair. That’s where the plusses end. The minuses? They go on and on. Having your friends talk needlessly about married life, having to listen about the emotional rollercoaster that is buying appliances, and receiving plenty of unsolicited information about their sex life. ‘Starting a family’ is code for having unprotected sex. I don’t go around telling people that I partook in some serious family prevention on Friday night do I? Either way, marriage is very hard to escape, and I narrowly did.

When I was 21 or so I began dating a girl I met at a show. At the time we met she had a boyfriend, she lived with this boyfriend a few states and a no-bathroom-break five hour drive from me. Knowing all this, I decided it would be a good idea to pursue her. After a surprise visit and some grand romantic gestures, her boyfriend moved with his x-box and a sleeping bag to the attic where he would plot his revenge[1].

Around the time the newly titled ex-boyfriend was sharpening his knives I was in the midst of some serious family prevention. Afterwards, in what I thought was innocuous pillow talk, my lady friend asked if I would ever take ballroom dancing lessons with her. In my post coital fog I would have agreed to anything. I would have agreed to mastermind a jewel heist and author a book arguing that the earth is only 6,000 years old. I would have been so much safer had she requested either of these things from me. I gathered all my strength to open one eye and sigh out “sure.” She responded “Good. Because I couldn’t marry someone who wouldn’t take ballroom dancing lessons with me.” All of the blood in my body that had migrated south for the holiday booked a redeye back to my brain. I had walked into a bear trap. It had not yet snapped my leg in half, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it out. After some quick thinking, I did what I would most likely do if I was caught in an actual bear trap; tried to sleep it off.

She had left for class by the time I woke up and after a quick scan of the room, there were no save-the-dates that I could see. I relaxed. I thought that maybe the whole thing was a terrible dream.

A day later we went out to dinner. It was very casual. If I remember correctly, some of her friends tagged along. It was a diner style place; warped silverware wrapped in paper napkins. The meal went by without incident. As I polished off another tap water she asked me if I wanted to split some desert with her. I answered “sure.” As she put down the menu she responded “Good. Because I couldn’t marry someone who wouldn’t split desert with me.” What? Split desert? There was no way that was an actual qualifier for marriage. I was blindsided by the absurdity before I was sideswiped with reality; the bear trap had sunken deeper into my leg. I sat wooden faced and waited for the dessert to arrive. A slice of pie was between us. I imagined it officiating our wedding; a wedding predicated on ballroom dancing and pastry sharing. I took a bite of the pie and it turned to ash on my tongue.

I now had the fear. What could I do? I did not want to get married, I did not want to talk about getting married, but I did not want to stop seeing her without clothes. She was incredibly good looking, she had a good sense of humor too[2]. I could go on about her other wonderful qualities but I fear that I have already betrayed my deep and sensitive nature. But from that point on the fear was my constant companion. Did I want to go to the movies? Good. Because she’d never marry someone who didn’t want to go the movies. Did I want Mike n Ikes? Good. Because she’d never marry someone who didn’t want Mike n Ikes. Did I want to go for the jumbo size for just fifty cents more? Good. Because she’d never marry someone who didn’t and the guy behind the counter was pushing for the upsell pretty hard.

While I don’t doubt that she liked me, I don’t think she loved me, or even wanted to marry me. She loved marriage. I happened to be marriable by her estimation. I have known plenty of people who feel this way; they love marriage. Often they love it so much they are willing to marry someone they don’t really love. I can sympathize with this, to an extent. I love Thai food. I will eat Thai food with basically anyone. I’ve gone to get Thai food with some real questionable characters. It doesn’t make the food any worse. Unfortunately, with marriage, the experience depends entirely on the person you are doing the whole marriage thing with. Also, it typically lasts much longer than most Thai food outings.  

I loved neither her, nor marriage, so I did the only thing I could do. I broke up with her over the phone after my ex-girlfriend came onto me pretty hard.          

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[1] This revenge took its form by slashing the tires of my Toyota Corolla, an act which I deserved completely.

[2] It is worth mentioning again how good looking she was.

Partying With a Baby

A friend and I were discussing the logistics of a camping trip yesterday. We decided that our friends who are married with a child would join us in a staggered fashion. Night one, the husband joins us; wife looks after the baby. Night two, the hungover husband looks after the baby, wife joins us. Day three, just the baby.

I forget how old the baby is because he isn’t quite at that point where everyone uses years to describe his age; he is still just a collection of months: 16 months, 18 months, 252 months, who knows. He is older than one, less than two. He can walk, he can say certain things. He is old enough to party. When my friend first suggested that the baby come party on the camping trip I thought it would be pretty fantastic. The baby is a pretty cool guy, not just baby cool, regular cool. He owns a drum set and has this wingback chair that is size appropriate. I know plenty of people in their 20s who don’t even have those things and probably never will. Also, being a baby, he doesn’t get caught up on annoying things, like pretending he knows anything about politics or making Arcade Fire and Bruce Springsteen comparisons.

But as I thought about it more, I began to reconsider. The number one thing that came to mind was a former friend, or rather acquaintance who I hated but spent unlimited amounts of time with, shaken out of his puny mind on mushrooms sobbing uncontrollably underneath a parked van in Las Vegas. The reason I thought of this was because this person looked like a baby. He also looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, who looks like a baby. He had a bottomless appetite for all things: food, general consumer goods, and substances both illicit and licit.

When he was high his attention span flew out the window, like so much pot smoke blown through dryer sheets in an effort to mask the scent from his parents. He could not do anything for more than 3 minutes before becoming momentarily enamored with something else. Some of these things included, Furbies, playing minesweeper, or leaving whatever was going on to take a shower.  

When he was drunk he was obnoxious; he adopted a machismo that thankfully was absent from every other moment of his life. An ability to put away beers was central to this machismo. He pounded them down like a modern day John Henry, waging a war against some invisible steam-powered beer drinking machine. After one night of carousing, in which he varnished a stranger’s porch with his insides, he passed out by a dumpster in a parking lot where he laid his weary head down for the night.

Once, after having inhaled a snowball of uppers he sprinted circles around a VFW hall where some terrible, but undeserving, band was doing the best they could to maintain their composure. He managed to channel every scene in which Daffy Duck acrobatically avoids Elmer Fudd’s gunfire. In this instance the gunfire was dignity. Admittedly, this was funny to watch. Imagine the Pillsbury Doughboy doing his best Baryshnikov in a room full of aghast strangers. It was funny. For the first five minutes. For whatever reason, when on uppers his focus became singular and unbreakable. This newfound steel resolve always honed in on something comparable to whooping and pirouetting.

When he was on halucigens; see blubbering under a van in Las Vegas.

This got me thinking to other people. People who didn't even look like babies or cherubic food spokesthings. Buff shirtless idiots held up by ottomans, telling girls that they just met how they would make good mothers. Once well dressed girls, now drunkenly teetering into Ms. Havisham territory, demanding privileged treatment as a result of their high levels of attractiveness. Anyone talking about Ayn Rand for even half a second. Adults committed all of these offenses when partying. I once left a club with a girl on the basis that we were both Portuguese. I am only half Portuguese. Certainly babies would be a thousand times worse. Or would they?

In the sober light of day, I would never have even gone to the club that I later left due to my half heritage. The man with a sharpshooter’s eye for motherhood; he went to med school. The people who talk about Ayn Rand, well, they usually have the common decency to keep it under their hats. So does partying make people total idiots? Or does it just invert things? There were more than a few people in my periphery who were branded with unwanted nicknames as a result of their inebriated incontinence. My logic is this: Babies + Sobriety = pooping their pants. Adults + Partying = Pooping their pants. Ergo: Babies + Partying = Not pooping their pants. If I remember my sophomore year logic, that is a modus ponens.

This brings me back to my original thought. Partying with a baby. It would be awesome. As my friend imagined it, that baby at hand is “kind of like a Senator.” He would be just like a senator, and not a present day senator. A senator from the 1920s, a consummate sharp dresser who is a bit corrupt, but not in arms dealing or anything, just kickbacks because he has grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle. We imagined that he would just sit by the fire, smoking a Cuban, a few fingers of double barrel in some crystal; taking it all in. He could rock a heavy buzz, and it would even him out, he wouldn't need to overcompensate.

By the time anyone gets around to actually to partying, they have been bombarded with depictions of how you are supposed to act. Babies don’t know that when you party you are supposed to act like a complete douchebag. They’ve never seen Jersey Shore, no one’s friend’s brother ever talked about doing body shots during spring break, they’ve never carried someone out of an Applebee's wearing a 21^st birthday tiara. They would get buzzed and think “this is totally awesome.” Babies don’t need a lot. Have you ever seen one open a gift? They don’t even need the gift, just the wrapping paper.   

So, for this upcoming camping trip, it will be me, a few bottles of Johnny Walker Black, and a bunch of infants. Maybe a copy of Gooddnight Moon too.

It’s going to be a good time.

Disclaimer

Most of what will appear here is true, or has some element of truth to it. No names will be included, unless I slip up. This isn't to "protect" the innocent as much as it is to protect myself. Protect myself from having to talk to these people. Most funny stories don't depict people in a flattering light. In the end, the veracity of a story is always secondary to how funny it is.