Thoughts on Marriage: A Many Part Series in Which I Burn Bridges and Insult a Lot of People

Recently, as I was doing some errands around my Precious Brooklyn Neighborhood, I stopped at a local store that sells a lot of cool shit—handbags, dresses, lingerie—and for the first time ever, I think I really looked in the jewelry case.

Now, I’m not a big one for jewelry, especially fancy, expensive jewelry, as I’m pretty much guaranteed to lose it in a toilet somewhere, or jumping into some body of water or other. But this time, there were a couple rings that caught my eye—one was an awesome diamond number, three slim platinum bands, covered in tiny diamonds. Goddamn, did I think it would be nice to have that—and even better to have someone who wants to give it to me.

There’s an Old 97’s song, “Question,” where the beautific Rhett Miller sings, “Someday somebody’s gonna ask you / A question that you should say yes to / Once in your life…” Well, I think most people probably agree that yes, it would be nice. Especially from someone like Rhett.

You might be asking yourself, dear reader, at this time, if I have ever come close to being married. I certainly write about shallow topics—seedy bars, meaningless encounters, mediocre men and even more mediocre one-night stands—enough for you to think that I am a callous, heartless lady devoid of achieving any sort of emotional connection that lasts more than three beers.

Well, I’m here to prove you wrong. And now, some thoughts on marriage.

I could’ve been married by this point. Probably three times over (which means I could be thrice divorced by now. Thrice!). Let’s relieve these gems I have let slip through my bony-ass fingers.

The first guy I’m pretty certain would’ve married me, was Mr. All-American High School. Yeah, he was a football and baseball star in our teeny-tiny community, Homecoming King, and so on. We had next to nothing in common as I was the Brain and he? Not so much. Anyway, after a dismal year-plus courtship, he described to me, one evening at his crappy apartment, his dream wedding.

“I want to have a baseball-themed wedding,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be great? Like everyone dress in their whites and then have the groomsmen hold baseball bats up to walk through?”

Are you fucking kidding me?

I knew immediately that all this talk of “baseball weddings”—his ideal fantasy—was on the Big Fat Highway to Hell for me—a hell in which I would be married to an ex-jock, stuck in my hometown forevermore, who thinks that having a sports-themed wedding is a good idea. I pretty much jumped out of that one shortly thereafter.

By the way, this kinda talk was going on when I was 19—and nobody at the age of 19 should be involved in any sort of wedding talk whatsoever. At 19, you should be concerned with getting through finals and figuring out how to get into bars without an I.D. Not walking down some stupid church aisle under a bunch of Louisville Sluggers and thinking about Little Pink Houses and picket fences and procreating.

Update:  Oh, and Mr. All American did indeed do this wedding–with someone else. A couple years and puppies later, he got caught with his pants down, literally, fucking someone-other-than-wifey in the back of a cop car when he was on-duty. (Oh, he also became a cop, as if it wasn’t bad enough already.)

Oh, I’m only getting started. Next up…What Ever Happened to That Crazy Redhead Who Saw You Smoking With Your Vagina?