I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues
Wendy is leaving town for the long weekend, and for the first time since
we've been married, we will be apart. I mean, we do spend hours apart
when we're at work--don't get me wrong. We're not one of those couples
who literally do everything together. I knew couples like that in high
school and even a few in college, but after that, not so much. They're
kind of creepy. I remember a commercial parody on Saturday Night Live
with Kevin Nealon and Victoria Jackson (I think)
playing a couple so in love they did everything together, including
going to the bathroom. The product in this "commercial" was
his-and-her toilets, for the couple who couldn't stand to be apart for
one second.
Funny stuff, but if that's true love, then I haven't reached that level
of bliss.
Anyway, Wendy is going away to see her brother who lives down in
Florida. He's coming up a little closer to us (the North Carolina coast)
for a visit and since I can't get off work, I told her to go ahead
without me. I'm a good guy. What more can I say?
Unlike Mr. Surf Report, I'm very fortunate in that my in-laws are good
people. It makes for boring writing, but sane living. The majority of
them live here in this little spot off of Exit 149 and if they were even
a little bit like the in-laws that Mr. Surf Report describes in his
updates, I'm sure I would be whimpering in the corner of some nervous
hospital, wrapped securely in a nice little restraining jacket. At the
risk of sounding like Eddie
Haskell, Mr. Surf Report is a better man than I. And that is a
lovely dress you're wearing, Mr. Surf Report.
Predictably, when word got out that Wendy was leaving town for the
weekend, friends crawled out of the woodwork (like zombies, naturally)
and told me I needed to go out and have a good time. Recapture some of
the glory days of your bachelorhood, they told me. That was my
intention, but little did they know, my "glory days" of
bachelorhood consisted of me lying around on the couch and watching TV.
My wild days, for lack of a better word, were back during my first go at
college. Getting "wild" as a bachelor meant juggling a bowl of
popcorn in one hand, while holding a beer in the other, and not spilling
either. That was thrill seeking.
However, I was curious as to what recapturing my bachelorhood
would look like, so I watched a few movies that covered this particular
event. I was surprised to learn there is a genre out there. Sometimes
it's presented as a bachelor's last night of "freedom" before
getting married, but there are movies where a married guy goes for a
night out on the town with his friends, or a gang of married guys have a
weekend. Most of the ones I saw appeared to be low-budget,
straight-to-video and poorly acted. This was fine because I took zero
theater in school and only stayed in film appreciation class for about
three weeks before dropping it (the professor was unbearably
pretentious). It was like I was learning from my peers.
What I saw horrified me. Not just the acting, mind you, but what
happened on these alleged innocent nights out. They started out
innocently enough, but it wasn't long before they spun out of control
and it was always the poor innocent married guy, the one who was dragged
into all this by his buddies. who was forced into getting things
straightened out before his wife got home. All the brave talkers, the
bachelors who scoff at us married men, were cowering mounds of blubber
in some of them and in others, they were dead or maimed. And these were
the comedies. In some of the newer ones, there was the addition of a
stripper or a hooker who shows up in the action only to drop dead.
Naturally, she becomes the married guy's responsibility, and he has to
find a dumpster without the cops spotting him, or he has to dig a quick
grave. In one of them, he was hand-cuffed to a stripper who dropped
dead. Comedy gold. I guess.
I liked the idea that a night on the town for a few drinks could lead to
me being able to learn how to discharge elaborate firearms two at a
time, but I'm not sure it beats the appeal of a very comfortable couch
and a kick-ass, 12-year-old TV. And it would be nice to be able to see
my friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a couple years, but I'm not
sure I want to risk their lives for a few Kodak moments. After all, some
of them might not be around afterward to enjoy them. Plus, I'm getting
no help from the Internet on how long it takes for a dead stripper
hand-cuffed to you to start smelling.
The clock is ticking on me as I weigh my options. Wendy shoves off
bright and early Saturday morning and by the time my shift ends Saturday
night, people are going to want to know if I'm a man or a mouse. I have
no idea what this means, but I suspect in their eyes, a man goes
out for drinks and runs the risk of inadvertently pissing off the
Russian mob, flees for his life while dodging bullets and assorted
artillery, ends up in strange neighborhoods, has a stripper (or hooker)
thrust upon him only to have said stripper (or hooker) die on him,
buries or tosses the stripper (or hooker), loses a couple of drinking
buddies in an ambush, arms himself for retaliation, takes out Russian
mob that he inadvertently pissed off, gets back home in time to clean
house, greets Wendy at door and collapses in a heap. A mouse goes home
after work and watches TV while relaxing on the couch.
This will probably be a game-time decision. They both have their pluses
and minuses, so I will wait and see how I feel after work ends Saturday
night. To save time, I went ahead and bought a couple bags of quicklime
and dug a grave in the dirt cellar of this house that we call home. If
one or two of you want to be an alibi for me, in case things really go
south, I would be most grateful.
