I Hate Manure
The first three years of matrimony were bliss. We were married in the Spring, at a quaint but well-attended wedding on the East Coast, her family, my family, friends, bosses, important co-workers. Crystal punch bowls, gym memberships, and a purebred racehorse named Lil' Transistor were wedding gifts. When I think about the way things are now, I wonder if things would have been different had I answered differently in that conversation seven years ago.
When we returned I began my career as Head Surgeon at nicest, most Catholic hospital our town had. I built a client list of wealthy valetudinarians, Marriane kept house (with the staff of butlers and maids, of course), and we were both overjoyed with each other and our lives in general. And that lasted for quite some time.
Then the accident came.
I was at work when I heard the news. But I didn't really have long to digest it, because the next thing I knew, she was being wheeled in through the ER, screaming bloody murder.
"Make a hole and make it wide!" the medic screamed, "Bobcat Goldthwaite's been in a terrible accident!"
I was shocked that a celebrity of his caliber was visiting our town, but then I looked down and saw the six-and-a-half carat engagement ring that I bought Marriane on one of the few bloody fingers that remained on the hand of the twisted beast I saw in front of me.
Marriane had been waiting at a red light in the back of the Rolls, Jeeves at the wheel, when a giant manure truck, ironically being driven by none other than a drunk Bobcat Goldthwaite, smashed into them, killing or injuring Jeeves, and disfiguring my darling wife, who I'd unfortunately promised to still love even if she was in an accident of just this variety.
The doctors, even with the best technology in the world, could do little to help her grotesque appearance. But I made a promise, and I am a man of my word. We stayed together, and I nursed her to recovery, finding only at the end of that period that she had grown old and fat, which only dampened my spirits more. And then, one day several months after the accident, I arrived home to find the house empty. No espresso machine. No cuisinart. No chandelier. Even Lil' Transistor had vanished.
"Darling," I called with alarm, "where are all of our things?"
"I got them all reposessed," she sobbed from the sitting room. I found her there, sitting in the one furnished room we had left, in a seventeenth-century Quenby Hall chair, and admiring what looked like an original Kandinsky. Composition IV, I think. "I bought a bunch of antique furniture and valuable artwork, and then it was all inexplicably taken away."
"Yes," I mumured.
We moved out of the house soon after that, and into her sister's place on the poor side of town. We stayed there only a few days, as her sister couldn't bear the smell of Marriane's unbearable gas--another unfortunate side-effect of the accident. Her O-Ring was unable to tell the difference between clenched and unclenched. Dreadful.
As I tell you this story, we sit, side-by-side with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few other meager posessions we were able to scrape from our old abode. Many people pass us by on the street when I beg for change or look for day labor, and smile--a heart-warming sight, I suppose, a loving couple still together through thick and thin, through sickness and health, for richer or poorer, and all that other bullshit. Most of them don't leave anything.
But I've got a plan to get out of this situation, now that I've discovered the problem. The problem, I've discovered, weighs about 117 pounds, has brown hair, six fingers, one leg, and resembles one of the stars of Police Academy and Unhappily Ever After.
Please friend, don't judge me. I've had a tough time. I've done the best I can, I've fulfilled at least the bonds of holy matrimony, and I've made it and lost it all, just for the sake of one woman. I've had a lot of time to think over the last few years, and I've come to one conclusion: some promises were meant to be broken.
And hey, you know anybody looking for a good deal on a gently-used Kandinsky?
"Darling, do you love me?" she asked me in a half-whisper. She lay on the blanket, her feet sticking off in the grass, her head resting on my thigh.Two years after that picinic, when I graduated from Harvard Medical School and Marriane was growing into the socialite whose parties everyone was dying to go to, I proposed, and we were married a year later. Honeymoon in the Galapagos, Greece, and Guam. The theme--Marriane loves themes--was "Tropical Regions That Begin With 'G'."
"You know I do," I replied.
"Say it. I like to hear you say it."
"I love you darling, I love you. I love you more than anything in the world. More than life itself."
She sighed contentedly, her eyes closed. "That much?"
"Of course darling."
"No matter what?"
"No matter what."
"What about when I get old and fat?"
"You'll always be beautiful to me."
"What about if I spend all your money on expensive antique furniture and artwork?" Expensive antique furniture and artwork were a passion of hers.
"We'll live on love," I answered promptly.
"What if I get into a car accident and I lose my left leg, four fingers, my face is horribly disfigured and I end up looking like Bobcat Goldthwaite?"
I thought about it for a minute. That would suck. It couldn't happen. I'll try to keep her from driving. She looks anxious. What would you do? Answer her. But you can't lie; this is the woman you love! She needs an answer!
"Yes darling, of course I'll still love you," I lied. "Why would you even ask?"
When we returned I began my career as Head Surgeon at nicest, most Catholic hospital our town had. I built a client list of wealthy valetudinarians, Marriane kept house (with the staff of butlers and maids, of course), and we were both overjoyed with each other and our lives in general. And that lasted for quite some time.
Then the accident came.
I was at work when I heard the news. But I didn't really have long to digest it, because the next thing I knew, she was being wheeled in through the ER, screaming bloody murder.
"Make a hole and make it wide!" the medic screamed, "Bobcat Goldthwaite's been in a terrible accident!"
I was shocked that a celebrity of his caliber was visiting our town, but then I looked down and saw the six-and-a-half carat engagement ring that I bought Marriane on one of the few bloody fingers that remained on the hand of the twisted beast I saw in front of me.
Marriane had been waiting at a red light in the back of the Rolls, Jeeves at the wheel, when a giant manure truck, ironically being driven by none other than a drunk Bobcat Goldthwaite, smashed into them, killing or injuring Jeeves, and disfiguring my darling wife, who I'd unfortunately promised to still love even if she was in an accident of just this variety.
The doctors, even with the best technology in the world, could do little to help her grotesque appearance. But I made a promise, and I am a man of my word. We stayed together, and I nursed her to recovery, finding only at the end of that period that she had grown old and fat, which only dampened my spirits more. And then, one day several months after the accident, I arrived home to find the house empty. No espresso machine. No cuisinart. No chandelier. Even Lil' Transistor had vanished.
"Darling," I called with alarm, "where are all of our things?"
"I got them all reposessed," she sobbed from the sitting room. I found her there, sitting in the one furnished room we had left, in a seventeenth-century Quenby Hall chair, and admiring what looked like an original Kandinsky. Composition IV, I think. "I bought a bunch of antique furniture and valuable artwork, and then it was all inexplicably taken away."
"Yes," I mumured.
We moved out of the house soon after that, and into her sister's place on the poor side of town. We stayed there only a few days, as her sister couldn't bear the smell of Marriane's unbearable gas--another unfortunate side-effect of the accident. Her O-Ring was unable to tell the difference between clenched and unclenched. Dreadful.
As I tell you this story, we sit, side-by-side with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few other meager posessions we were able to scrape from our old abode. Many people pass us by on the street when I beg for change or look for day labor, and smile--a heart-warming sight, I suppose, a loving couple still together through thick and thin, through sickness and health, for richer or poorer, and all that other bullshit. Most of them don't leave anything.
But I've got a plan to get out of this situation, now that I've discovered the problem. The problem, I've discovered, weighs about 117 pounds, has brown hair, six fingers, one leg, and resembles one of the stars of Police Academy and Unhappily Ever After.
Please friend, don't judge me. I've had a tough time. I've done the best I can, I've fulfilled at least the bonds of holy matrimony, and I've made it and lost it all, just for the sake of one woman. I've had a lot of time to think over the last few years, and I've come to one conclusion: some promises were meant to be broken.
And hey, you know anybody looking for a good deal on a gently-used Kandinsky?
posted by Chris Cusack at 9:43 PM
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