Finding a Use For the Married

“…and I’m in the pit too?”

“Yup.”

“So I’m a freakin’ idiot, right?”

“Yup.”

 

That’s what friends do; real friends are not afraid to hit Rob with the moron spade. I appreciate it though.  It’s the stinging thwack of love.  When they lean over and dust me off, I get a noogie, a peck on the forehead, and a lump in the skull to remember them.

 

Ever since my divorce the some questions have plagued me.  One of those questions is,  “What good are married people?”

 

I don’ mean marriage itself.  I’m a firm believer in that, but as a single person, what good are married people to me? For instance, most married people frown on me kissing them. They also don’t want to do things cuz of the “other half.” What the hell? They don’t play fetch, they don’t catch balls, they don’t even play dead.  What can a married person do?

 

Well yeah, and let me tell ya, they rub that in all the time…

 

Anyway, I know what use single people serve for the married; that’s easy: they’re science experiments.  Married people invite the single to their homes, then poke and prod them like they’re the Pillsbury Dough Children until they drop their cookies. 

 

That’s why, when I visit married people, I usually just throw dead mice on the carpet.  It raises my “single mystique,” while making them think twice before asking questions they may not want answed.

 

“I use them for foreplay.”

 

Married people like to make projects of us too. They think we need to be fixed. I am not an Erector Set.  I promise you. After my divorce, I swear, if there was fixing to be done, MyEx did everything humanly possible get it done.  At this point, what’s still broken, is just gonna to stay that way.

 

So what good are married people to me?  I really wish they’d stay on their side of the pastor/altar line.

 

So you can understand my reluctance in emailing one yesterday.  Still, I was having a problem and there was nowhere else to turn.  My mind was a cul de sac of thoroughfare traffic. I needed somebody with a cursory knowledge of Rob mind neuro-patterns, but not a vested interest in where things led.

 

I mean there are people in my life who care, but some of them have bids in other Rob brain projects and there’s a conflict of interest.  Always count on somebody clearing up an interest conflict by steering things their way.  Married friends are conditioned:  They never have things their way.

 

That’s what I needed.  Besides, she was safe too. I mean what would happen if my friend told me something I didn’t want to hear?  I’d lick her husband’s forehead?  Not highly likely, he wears a coonskin cap and I generally don’t like raccoon fur between my teeth, at least outside of lent.

 

So I emailed her my crisis.

“Sounds like you have two problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“One’s yours, one’s somebody else’s; they have nothing to do with each other, but you’re trying to own them both.”

“Look, if I wanted riddles I’d have called my niece.  At least hers are funny.”

“And yet you emailed me…”

 

Great, even through the email I can see her stroking her beard with pride.  Married people think they have it all together.  Still, I play along.  An hour later, and a laptop full of fluid banter, the tight-knotted neurotransmitters start to unravel.  We continue, and because there is nothing to lose or gain for either of us, we found the answer I needed:

 

I’m a freakin’ idiot. 

 

It’s not so bad really; I just wish I didn’t need a married person to point it out.