Keriosity

Almost two years ago, I wrote about my experience driving and subsequently purchasing a Lamborghini. I mentioned that even though I enjoy a little speedy competition on the road, I did not share my husband’s car-themed psychosis. Well a lot has changed since then.

I sold my beloved BMW M3 in favor of a car with a manual transmission to force myself to learn to drive stick. The new car had to give me enough incentive to get behind the wheel, since I can pretty much walk anywhere I need to go. A Porsche 911 Cabriolet was a good incentive.

I liked driving stick so much that I purchased a second car with 100 more horsepower, without consulting my husband first.

I learned that, even in the year 2006, male car dealers don’t treat female customers with respect. Even after said female customer drives the 425hp V8 limited-production car better than they do.

I went on a 7-day illegal cross-country road race and learned that a giggle and a smile can get you out of at least 7 tickets. I also learned that a fast-driving airhead in a miniscule outfit gets attention, but a fast-driving chick in sweats and a baseball cap gets respect.

I drove on the track at Pocono Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the California Speedway and experienced that some male drivers underestimate, if not dismiss, female drivers.

I drag-raced on the most famous drag strip in the country, which is in Great Bend Kansas and learned that you can’t judge your opponent’s car by appearance alone. A broken-up taxicab with a subtle NOS sticker on the back is pretty much going to kick your ass. (NOS= Nitrous Oxide System, for those of you who don’t know. I didn’t.)

I drove every new model of BMW at the California Speedway and discovered the joy of spinning around a skid pad in someone else’s car.

This past Friday, I spent all day driving a Ferrari on the track at Pocono Raceway, and I learned that even a seasoned racing instructor can get scared sometimes (hey, you have to scare the instructor once.) I think I’ve contracted my husband’s psychosis. And I like it.

A friend sent around a “Hubby Application” on myspace and I thought I could write a better one.The Real Husband Application, by Keri Rensing1. My image of marriage could be compared to:

a. A Security blanket

b. A bank robbery

c. Porn

d. A romantic chick-flick 

 

2. Husband is to Wife as

a. CFO is to COO

b. Patron is to Waitress

c. ATM is to bank customer

d. Servant is to Dominatrixe. Peanut Butter is to Jelly 

 

3. In my bachelorhood, my title and slogan was

a. The Bowler (”sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down”)

b. The Wing Man (”always the wing-man, never the one-that-gets-some”)

c. The Collector (”thin blondes with big knockers wanted”)

d. The Renovator (”beauty is only a scalpel away”)

e. Hank Aaron (”most home runs ever”) 

 

4. If a maid were to clean my home, she would need

a. Endust, a vacuum, and 3 hours

b. Clorox, a gas-mask, and 3 days

c. A white glove to find the dirt

d. A shovel to make it past the front door

e. Stilettos, a feather duster, and a french maid outfit 

 

5. When I propose, the ring will be

a. One that I pick out in secret after asking her friends for advice

b. One that she picks out and gives me a picture of

c. One that we pick out together

d. An iPod

e. She’ll get what I give her and like it 

 

6. When I get dumped, it hurts

a. My heart

b. My brain

c. My privates

d. My street cred

e. her more than it hurts me 

 

7. My feelings about romance are that

a. It works like a charm for getting girls in bed

b. It is fun to plan and more fun to see her enjoy

c. It is only for romance novels and chick flicks

d. I’d have more success planning the military evacuation of Iraq 

 

8. When I think of being a father

a. I feel nauseated, but excited

b. I’m indifferent, she’ll be taking care of them anyway

c. I wish I had a uterus

d. I google “vasectomy, non-invasive” 

 

9. When I hurt her feelings, the right thing to do is

a. Apologize for being wrong and give her a hug

b. Ignore her, she only wants attention

c. Get angry at her, what is her problem?!

d. Let her hit me with a throw pillow until she feels better and chalk it up to PMS 

 

10. “Growing old together” means

a. I’ll grow old and she’ll get botox

b. She’ll grow old and I’ll get a 20-year-old

c. I’ll have someone to take care of me

d. I’ve settled for mediocrity, otherwise known as monogamy

e. I’ll have a life-partner to share my joys and sorrows with 

 

Men should keep in mind that on this application, as in marriage, none of their answers will be right.

So, on the day when all of the inspectors came to the new house, a giant wolf spider made its presence known by hanging out on the living room floor. Not wanting to appear like a “girl” in front of all the manly inspectors, I waited until no one was in the room and I scooted the spider out of the front door using the end of the tape measure, which I had extended to a spider-safe distance of 5 feet. But, the natural animal-lover in me isn’t as easily hidden as the “girl” in me, so of course I had to talk to the spider reassuringly. “Now you get out of here, little guy. That’s right. Out the door with you!” I looked up to see the punk-surfer chimney guy watching me suspiciously. “I can’t believe you just did that” he said. “I would have squished him. That is a HUGE spider!” I explained that I was afraid that if I tried to step on him, the spider would grab my leg and pull me to the floor where a vicious battle would surely ensue. Has anyone else ever seen that 1977 flick, Kingdom of the Spiders? Starring William Shatner? No? Well I have. Spiders can kick your ass.

Once our move into the house became imminent and I had spent enough time at the house to realize that spiders were going to be an issue, I started doing research online to learn which spiders I can expect to come across and which might kill me. Ugh! What an itchy 2 hours that was! Not only did I learn about identifying spiders, but I learned that some people in this world actually trap spiders and keep them as pets. And name them! All pet spiders are named Wolfie, Legs, Spike, or Charlotte, by the way. (If I had a pet spider, I would name him “Eek!” And then I would check myself into the nearest insane asylum. Keeping a wild spider as a pet is just not something sane people do.)

My online research lead me to a chart of non-dangerous vs. dangerous spiders, or, more practically speaking: spiders you can squish with a rolled up magazine vs. spiders you have to squish with a broom. Most need to be squished with a broom. Also, a good drowning using a hose works well too. You never want to try to kill a dangerous spider with a magazine or tissue, because what if you miss and the spider jumps on your hand and kills you?

I don’t care what that book my parents read to me as a child said: Spiders are not “our friends.” They are icky and scary and leggy and sneaky.

Here is the most traumatic experience I’ve ever had in regards to a spider: Often when I’m sleeping, I open my eyes and I think I see spider webs over my face or I think there’s a giant spider in my bed. I can’t tell you how many times my husband has woken up by either me screaming and throwing all the covers off the bed, or the movement of me, in my sleep, waving away “webs” in the air over my face. (This web-spider-hallucination thing is actually not that uncommon. So stop thinking that I’m crazy.) But - one night, I had an itch on my lip and I felt something there and I grabbed it and threw it on the floor, yelling “Turn on the light!!!!” Emil, out of habit, grumbled “There is NO spider. Go back to sleep.” But once the lights were on, and I saw there WAS a half-squished spider on the floor, I was both vindicated and horrified.

“That spider was on my LIP!!! MY LIP!!!”
“Great - finally an actual spider. We are never going to have a quiet night’s sleep again” Emil muttered.
“I could have eaten it by accident!”I cried. He wasn’t very sympathetic.

Someone once told me that the average person eats 10 bugs a year. The average WHAT person? Reality show contestant? Jungle-dwelling tribe member? Homeless person? I find it very hard to believe that I ingest 10 bugs a year and don’t know about it. How often do you hear of a person eating a bug? Like 3 times in your life? I’d think that if you ate 10 bugs a year, you’d know about at least 7 of them. Also, we’d all talk a lot less because, I don’t know about you, but if I thought that there was a possibility of inadvertently eating 10 bugs a year, I’d never open my mouth.

I’m really itchy now so I’m going to stop writing about spiders. Ugh!

I just got finished reading a great book. Its cover is filled with accolades about what a beautiful love story and how it’s a triumph of love and how soaring and brilliant and poignant and sweet and blah blah blah blah BLAH. What did I think? I was depressed and sad. It was a great book, yes. But I will never read it again. And I often read great books more than once.

I never read love-stories and this is why: When I do read them, I feel unhappy afterwards. There is a reason that love-stories are always in the fiction section. They are so wrought with inaccuracies of real “love” that really they need a fiction section of their own. In fact, let’s make up a whole new bookstore section for them: The “Overly-Dramatized Never-Gonna-Happen Men-Aren’t-Like-This Fantasies That Make Every Woman Feel Bad About Her Own Relationship” section.

I don’t think I’m alone here. I happen to know that I have a great marriage. We aren’t perfect, but we have a strong relationship and I’d even say we’re happily in-love. Yet suddenly after reading a love-story or watching a love-story book made into a movie, I start to become resentful of all the normal marriage stuff that is too normal to be in the book or movie. Somehow, I start to think that since Vanessa and Mikel never fight about who left crumbs on the kitchen counter and their love is deeper and more passionate than this world can handle and so they need to quantum leap to other lifetimes to fulfill this massively endless timeless love, my simple one-lifetime crumb-filled marriage must be so…lacking.

Love-story characters never fight over the bills, they never slouch on the sofa watching TV all weekend because they are bored but too lazy to make plans, and 60 pages of each book are not dedicated to football. Also, love-story sex seems to bring about altered states of consciousness instead of inspiring such mood-killing outbursts as “oh your mother called today” and “don’t forget to pick up stamps.”

I think that the high divorce rate can be attributed, in part, to love-stories. If we can blame the media for warping women’s body-images, I think it’s not a stretch to blame it for our unrealistic idea of what a relationship should be. Men are not romantic by nature. (No, they are not.) When they do anything romantic, it’s a means to an end. And they know better than we do that there are many other means to that end, so Romance is the least used of all the means. He probably does the dishes to get the end more often than he lights candles and pours you a glass of wine, right? And how many of us have actually come home to find a pathway of rose petals, or candles, or love-notes, or anything other than dirty socks or piles of mail or the kids’ toys leading us to the boudoir? Hm?

With all these loving, romantic, thoughtful, apologetic, communicative husbands and lovers in these books we read - women develop very high standards for real-world men - who, by the way, rarely read books, let alone love-stories. How are men to know what they should be aspiring to be?

I think the solution is for women to start to write whatever it is that men DO read.

They like to read car magazines? Here’s a sample:

“According to Dodge, the new Ram Mega Cab boasts a number of “biggest” in its class: largest cab (perfect for when your beautifully pregnant wife is 9-months along…have you told her how beautiful she looks?), most interior cargo room (great for antique sales!), most cargo volume behind the rear seat (lots of long stem roses can fit there!), most second-row legroom (How about a double-date with her sister and brother-in-law? That new Julianna Moore movie is playing!)”

Is your guy a home improvement do-it-himselfer?

“The key to properly re-carpeting the master bedroom is to choose a high-grade extra-plush quality carpet, so that when you spontaneously decide to shower the bed with rose petals, light candles, play soft music, have chilled champagne ready, and present your lady with outrageously expensive new lingerie - and a diamond tennis bracelet to match - she has nice soft carpeting on which to faint from the shock of what a perfect and romantic man you are.”

Or maybe he’s a sports fan?

“Police have reportedly been called to the home of Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley three times this summer due to domestic violence issues.” …Uh…

“Anchor-reporter Carolyn Hughes has been taken off Dodger coverage at Fox Sports West during an investigation of her relationship with pitcher Derek Lowe. Neither Lowe nor Hughes would comment, but Lowe’s wife Trinka had plenty to say.” …Um…

“Nike is using photos of Kobe Bryant for the first time since his arrest two years ago for an alleged assault on a female employee at a Colorado resort.”

Ok I tried to find articles I could tweak to give examples of professional athletes being great husbands - but I couldn’t find any who are! Those guys are dogs!

I guess I’ll just go back to reading suspense thrillers and historically-based novels. At least those books make me grateful that no serial killers are after me and that I live in the age of chapstick and tampax.

PS - The Time Traveler’s Wife: good book, but don’t hold it against your man. Especially if he travels a lot.