Couplehood Read online

  One morning, our dog was sick and left a particularly repulsive souvenir at the foot of the bed—a combination of grass, raspberry yogurt, and liner notes to a Ray Charles album. My wife, in a pathetically desperate last-minute plea bargain, blurted out, “I will take him out every morning for the rest of our lives if you clean up whenever he does this.”

  Sold.

  Being a man who knows a good deal when he sees one, I jumped up, shook hands, and started cleaning up. After all, the dog only messes up the house once in a while, but he has to be taken out every morning. I thought it was a very sound investment.

  It was only later, while I was straining dog puke from a sponge, that it hit me: if I’m in charge of cleaning up future In-House Accidents, there’s no real incentive for my wife to rush the dog out of the house every morning. It’s not her problem. So once again, ladies and gentlemen, you see how even when negotiating in the best of faith with someone you love, you can get badly, badly burned.

  Alone

  Together

  Theoretically, marriage is all about Two people becoming as One. But in the real world—and let’s be really clear about this—you ain’t One. You’re Two. And there’s only so much two people can blend.

  Like in bed. For all the advantages of sleeping next to another person, it’s not always easy to figure out where everything goes. Arms and legs that didn’t bother you all day are suddenly a burden.

  Many people opt to minimize their Limb Placement decisions by sleeping on their own side of the Team Bed, an approach known as “Individual Free-Style Sleep.” But even here there are choices to be made.

  I myself am a big fan of the popular “One Arm Across Your Forehead, the Other Hand Resting Nicely on Your Groin.” (Nine out of ten men sleep with at least one hand guarding their crotch. Not that this really protects anything, but if anyone tries to attack or pilfer, you’re at least notified, and have a shot at dissuading them.)

  But the real challenge is when you have four arms and legs to find homes for. Not so easy.

  You got your “Her Head on His Chest, His Arm Around Her Shoulder” model, noted for its easy-access Chest Hair Fondling; there’s the “Face Each Other and One of You Wrap Your Upper Leg Around the Other One’s Legs,” or the easy-to-remember “Lie There on Top of Each Other Supporting Your Partner’s Body Weight With Your Own Rib Cage,” which again—effective for conversation but not really suited for lengthy, sleep-oriented couplings.

  For sleep, of course, you have your classic “Spoon” and “Reverse Spoon,” both enjoyable, but tough ones in terms of breathing. One of you will suffocate, and I’ve always believed there’s no point in being cozy if you’re dead.

  Then you’ve got the Thermal Levels to contend with. Not only are two people in the same bed never the same temperature, they’re not even close. One is freezing and the other is boiling. There’s no middle range. And you’re both upset that your partner doesn’t see it your way. “How can you be cold? I’m sweating rain forests here.… Come on, be like me. Be hot.” The contention being that if the other person is uncomfortable, they should at least be uncomfortable in the same thermal direction as you.

  But the real work of two people blending—the behavior stuff—is where things really get interesting. Because after so many years of being by yourselves, no matter how much “Us” paint you throw on top of it, the old “You” still shows through. And that’s usually not a good thing.

  A lot of guys think the highest compliment they can pay a woman is to treat her like “one of the guys.” The whole “Treat others as you would be treated yourself” rule becomes “Treat others as if you were by yourself.” They figure, “Surely we’re beyond the silly formalities, the need to be civil. Let’s relax. Be ourselves.” And the women are thinking, “Let’s not.” Because they know where this leads.

  “Hey!”

  “What?”

  “Did you just fart on my arm?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know you were there.”

  See, when you’re by yourself, you apply your own standards. It doesn’t bother your Self that you stand in the middle of the room, drink 32 ounces of club soda, and belch out everything you’ve eaten since the Spring. Your Self may not care. Others, however, may.

  And if you’re with another person all the time, every repugnant component of your life must, by definition, happen in front of the other person. There’s nowhere to hide.

  So you learn to accept each other. Your best behavior is now and forever reserved for outside the house, and once you’re inside, you’re free to be the repellent American you really are. There’s a tacit understanding. “I know all about you, you know all about me, and it’ll all be our little secret.”

  You become a little team. It’s the “two of you” against “everybody else.” And you look out for each other. Your partner becomes the one person in the world you can go over to and say, “Do I have anything in my nose?”

  That’s your mutual job: protect your Ugly Truths from everyone but each other. Which is kind of nice, actually. Here is someone who will not only be honest with you, but whose love for you is so great it can withstand looking up your nose. Then they go right back to loving you like it never happened.

  It’s ironic that Everybody Else—to whom you owe nothing—is spared having to see what’s in your nose. As if they deserve better. But your partner, the very person you love more than all others, gets to look right in there and investigate personally. That’s their little privilege. One of the many bonuses for signing on for the long haul.

  Don’t Look

  at Me,

  I Just Live

  Here

  When you decide to share a home with another person, a lot of thought goes into finding the specific home you intend to share.

  When my bride first moved into my apartment, it didn’t work for either of us. She felt she was getting, at best, half of a place, and I, who was doing fine by myself, thought, “Hey, what happened to the other half of my place?”

  It turns out, a house is like a bed: When you’re getting along, it doesn’t matter how small it is; and if you’re not, all the elbow room in the world ain’t going to help you.

  But still, you’re sure that somewhere out there your Dream House awaits.

  A lot of times, when you go to look at a potential home, there are people living there. It’s still their home. And I love walking into a place that already has Food Smells going. Those soupy, cakey, meaty smells. I don’t even want the food, I just want the smell.

  They should make a spray for people who don’t cook: An aerosol can that, for seven bucks, makes the whole place smell like pot roast. Or you could have a fumigator guy come in every three months.

  Doorbell rings. “Who is it?”

  “Pot roast man!” And he sprays around the house.

  “You want me to spray the bathroom?”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “How about under the sink?”

  “Okay, maybe just coffee and cake.”

  It’s hard to reject a house without feeling like you’re rejecting the people who live there; these nice people who are eating dinner while you investigate every nook and cranny of their home. You walk around the house, look in their closets, touch all their things, then look them in the eye and say, “You know what? No” And walk away.

  In essence, “This house is good enough for you, but we’re gonna try to beat it.”

  It’s hard. And you always walk through the place imagining a life that has nothing to do with reality. Planning things you’ll never do: parties and soirées with tantalizing guests and performers from other lands. “This is great. We can have a dance floor here, a cocktail area there, the orchestra can set up near the receiving line …”

  And then you move in and spend the rest of your life eating corn chips out of a bowl in front of the TV.

  “What happened to the dancing and the waltzing and jugglers and cocktail pavilion?”

  “I thought we were
someone else. My mistake.”

  Because in real life, you’re always in one of three places: the kitchen, the bathroom, or the bedroom. There are only three things to do in life, and that’s where we do them.

  When you actually move into a house, you learn quite quickly how little you know about anything.

  Day One, the guy comes to turn on the electricity. He asks me one question:

  “Excuse me, where is your main power supply?”

  Right there, I was stumped. First question as a homeowner, I had nothing.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably outside. Did you look outside, because I think I saw it there earlier.… Okay, I’m going to level with you, sir, I don’t really know what a main power supply looks like. What is it? Is it a big thing? Maybe it’s inside. It’s definitely either inside or outside, I know that. Tell you what—why don’t you find it, and that’ll be your first little job.… You find it, I’ll have it. That’ll be what I do. You find it and do certain things with wires that I don’t understand, and then I’ll give you more money than you deserve. Is that fair?”

  If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re at the mercy of anyone with a truck and a business card. And problems come up I never heard of.

  We had this snake in the backyard. Not a big snake but big enough to make me pass out. So I called the guy, the snake guy. Snake Man. That was his name. “Snakes in the Yard? Call Snake Man.” He had a truck with a little picture of a snake and everything. I said, “We have a snake.”

  He says, “Where?”

  Once again, I say, “Finding it will be pretty much up to you. I’m just telling you we have one.”

  He looks around and then tells me, “Listen, the kind of snake you have there is fine. It’s a good snake to have, because they scare away mice. You want these kind of snakes.”

  I say, “Okey-dokey.” And I pay him. For doing nothing. I give the man forty-five dollars for allowing me to continue to have the snake I already had.

  So now I rest comfortably in the knowledge that I have no mice, because the mice are all scared of my snake.

  Then I remember, I’m scared of the snake, too. That’s why I called the guy in the first place. Evidently, the only way I’m going to get rid of this snake is to scare him with something bigger. A mongoose. A cheetah. But then I’ll have to scare them away, and it will never end. The animals will just get bigger and bigger. I’m going to end up with a hippo in the living room.

  “Don’t worry, honey—they scare away the bison. Did you notice there were no bison around? Why do you think that is? They’re scared. Nice, huh? Hippo Man was here today, he explained the whole thing; forty-five bucks, we’re bison-free for a year.”

  I believe whatever they say. I don’t know who They are, but I trust them. And They say a lot of things.

  “You know what They say: ‘Cold hands, warm heart.’ ”

  “Who says that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hey, you know what they say about swimming on a full stomach.…”

  “Who actually said that?”

  “I don’t know, but why would they lie?”

  I just assume “They” know everything. “They” and “the Guy,” as in “Ask the Guy, he’ll know.”

  “I’m sure the Guy can fix it.”

  These are the two authorities running the whole show—They and the Guy. The Guy, I believe, is president of They.

  “You should have the guy check out that noise.”

  “I did. I brought it to the guy—he said he couldn’t fix it.”

  “The Guy couldn’t fix it? Are you sure this guy is good?”

  “That’s what They say.”

  All my life, I called the Guy. And if you could get him, he’d come over and fix it. Now I own a house, and I am the Guy—which doesn’t help anybody. I can get me; that’s not a problem. I’m available as hell. It’s knowing what to do when I get there that concerns me.

  Usually I look at the problem and say, “Honey, call the Guy. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong here, but my gut tells me flooding in a bedroom is bad. It can’t be right.”

  And I don’t love dealing with the Guy when he comes over. I’m much better at telling my wife how to deal with him.

  “Look, honey, I gotta go, but when the cable guy gets here, make sure you tell him that we are not happy with the reception! Be firm with the guy. That was the problem last time, you weren’t firm. I would do it myself, but I’ve got to go Gather and Hunt. I gotta go slay an elk. But if the guy shows up before I get back, for God’s sake—BE FIRM WITH HIM.”

  Again, this is part of that delicate balance between Men and Women that allows us to be together. In fact, I think the whole reason men and women get together in the first place is because we each can do certain things, and if you get together, everything gets done. Whatever comes up, somebody’s good at that.

  Ever catch a sweater on a hook and get that thread that sticks out? Women have learned that’s not a big deal. They know you can turn the sweater inside out, pull it through, tie a knot, and in twelve seconds you’ve got a new sweater. They got brochures as youngsters that explained this.

  Men did not get this pamphlet. Men will stare at the rip for half an hour and whine. “Oh, look at that! Do you believe that? Brand-new sweater, too! Now I gotta throw it out. There’s no way this can be saved.”

  On the other hand, women rarely get involved with connecting stereos, which is the one thing most men can do. Me, anyway.

  And it works out well. I’ll be putting up a set of speakers, and suddenly go, “Oh no—look what I just did to this sweater—caught it on the speaker!”

  And instantly, we both have something to do.

  Chicken

  or

  Fish

  I can’t believe how much of our life is spent planning food.

  “What do you feel like eating?”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “You gonna want to eat later?”

  “Probably.”

  “So we should get something now.”

  “Nah, we’ll get it later.”

  “Later everything’ll be closed. Let’s get something now.”

  “Alright, like what?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  And it never ends.

  Since we got married, I don’t think a day has passed that at least one conversation with my wife hasn’t ended with the words “Um, I don’t know … I guess … chicken.”

  Not one day. Do you understand this? Not one. The word “Chicken,” preceded by some unenthusiastic whine of indifference and frequently followed by an even less enthusiastic “Or maybe fish, I-don’t-care-it’s-up-to-you,” is by far the most commonly heard expression in our home. Perhaps second only to “You get it.”

  Chicken or fish. That’s basically what it comes down to.

  I wish we could just get pills to take the place of meals. Little full-balanced meals in pill form. Then you wouldn’t have to decide, you wouldn’t have to talk about it—huge chunks of your life would be freed up.

  Though I’m sure in no time I’d be on the phone going, “What do you feel like tonight—Chicken Pill or Fish Pill?”

  Here’s the thing with decisions. I can make them. I just don’t feel sure about them afterward.

  A friend of mine said, “Always go with your gut.”

  Then another friend said to me, “You know what? You should listen to your heart.”

  So now I have one more choice to make: Do I go with my heart or my gut? I can’t decide. I gotta do an entire autopsy. My heart says yes, my gut says no, my colon is iffy—I just don’t know who to listen to.

  Say we’re in a coffee shop, I’m ordering breakfast, and the waitress says, “With those eggs, you want pancakes or waffles?”

  Pancakes. Very easy. Firm, clear-cut decision.

  She walks away, and immediately I realize I should have had the waffles.… Yup, waffles was the way to go. Look at that guy
over there, he got the waffles, he looks very happy.

  “Excuse me, sir, how’re you enjoying those waffles? Pretty good, huh?”

  Great. He got the waffles. He’ll have a better breakfast, he’ll have a better day, a better life. He’ll go on to make a contribution to society, people will remember this guy for years.…

  Me? I got the friggin’ pancakes.

  A lot of times, you’re home and you’re too hungry to even talk about food. So you stand over the sink and start eating whatever you have—celery and some assorted nuts from a gift basket you got three years ago. By the time you figure out what you’re going to eat, you’re bloated, queasy, and no longer interested in food.

  Then there are things you don’t even realize you ate. You’re on the run all day, you grab what you can, and at the end of the day you realize—you’re a goat. You’ve eaten whatever you saw, whenever you saw it. And somewhere in your belly lie pathetically odd combinations of foods:

  “A quarter pound of hummus and some Cracker Jacks.”

  “Fifteen pieces of bread and a sour ball.”

  Foods that have no business being together.

  “Chicken salad, blueberries, and a Mounds Bar.”

  And couples like to report what they had. They need to share. Like without this information, they’d be keeping secrets.

  You come home: “You know what I had today? Milk. Milk and a half a cucumber. How do you like that?”

  Like it’s an accomplishment. You’re proud that you can sustain your body weight despite a punishing nutritional intake.

  Sometimes it’s more of a confessional. You feel bad about what you ate, and you want to enlist the help of your partner in berating yourself.

  “You know what I ate today? A bacon burger, M&Ms, and a thing of fried onions I found in the car.”