As a teenager I fantasized about traveling the world in my red sequined cape and jodhpurs (being it was the ’80s, I probably wouldn’t have stood out much), always alone, but taking on many lovers—though never using the word lovers, as it invokes images of bad European movies, the kind that feature far too many hairy men in Speedos.
And through my twenties and early thirties, I stayed on course, thanks to excessive confidence, more courage than common sense, and an unintentionally ludicrous series of choices in men, some of whom included the military cadet, whose idea of romance was to hack the top off a champagne bottle with a sword; the manic-depressive actor who had a bad habit of staring at his own hands; and the one-night stand who left gum in my pubic hair.
Still, it was all in the name of temporary fun, and none of it threatened permanent damage to my long-term plans, or to my hair.
Until one day a friend insisted I meet this guy who worked with her husband. She was sure we would fall madly and deeply for each other, and she wanted the matchmaking credit. We all went out for drinks at an underwhelming, overpriced steak house where the guy and I both recognized immediately that we were not a love—or even a like—match. Then at some point during the course of the evening, another friend of the husband showed up.
The new guy had a gold hoop earring and a sniper’s sense of humor, and we shared an immediate and easy rapport. As I left the restaurant that night I gave him my number (in spite of the earring) and demanded that he call me. When he didn’t, I was astonished. Didn’t he know that I was in a brief but deliberate window of sleeping around?
Finally, after an infuriatingly long wait (four days), he called. Our first date was dinner. Our second a movie. Our third was a trip to Vegas, for the wedding of the couple who’d introduced us.
And it was in Vegas, in a dank suite at Caesars Palace, after a little wine and a little making out, that I had a vision—even though I’m usually the type to make fun of people who have those sorts of things—of him and me, and a baby. (Our own baby, that is. I am not generally prone to kidnapping fantasies.)
And just like that, I went from being a woman who would never be called wife, to being half of a couple, to vowing in front of friends and family to love and honor, forever and ever, break the glass, l’chaim, amen.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Or is it? (No, I say rhetorically, it is not.)
Because marriage is like a movie where the two leads find themselves handcuffed to each other with no key and facing impossible odds to overcome. The only difference is that one version lasts two hours, while the other is much, much longer, unless you’re very unlucky, slip during the bouquet toss, and fall face-first into a pointy ice sculpture.
What got them there, the “Howdja meet?” question—that’s just the First Act setup. How a married couple navigates the world when they realize they’re about to spend their lives joined together, like Charles Grodin and Robert DeNiro in Midnight Run or Elizabeth Berkley and her stripper pole in Showgirls, that’s the real story.
Some couples toss around words like compatibility, sacrifice, romance, or pharmaceuticals when explaining how they do it. Being more analytical in my thinking, I’ve devised a mathematical concept to express how a marriage works. I call it “The Marriage Quotient.”
It is based on a scale of “workability,” where “100” might be achieving lengthy mutual orgasms while gazing into each other’s eyes, “50” is the moment you’re about to walk into your first couple’s therapy appointment, and “5” is giving a statement to the police about why you put dehydrated cat feces in your spouse’s oatmeal (I’d call that a “0,” except if you’re cooking for your spouse, then that should count for something).
Because the science behind the concept can be difficult to understand by anyone not living inside my skull, I shall now present a series of scenarios from my own marriage, along with their corresponding marriage quotients:
EXHIBIT A
I have just returned home after a dental appointment, only to find that the lower-left quadrant of my face is not only numb, it is completely and totally paralyzed. Initially, I find the sensation to be fun, in a novel kind of way. After spending thirty minutes staring at myself in the bathroom mirror and pretending to be Daniel Day-Lewis pretending to be a character, I head over to my computer, where I make the mistake of Googling this phenomenon, thereby learning that it’s an uncommon reaction to some forms of dental anesthesia; in most cases, the paralysis is temporary, but in a few it is permanent and irreversible. As I am a card-carrying member of the Jumping to Conclusions Society, I immediately transition from being mildly entertained to experiencing a full-blown panic attack, at which point I phone my husband at work. Upon hearing me sob that I might lose the use of the left half of my mouth, he is quiet for a moment and then calmly suggests, “So, I guess this means you’ll be giving blow jobs on the side.”
Now then: if a major earthquake or tsunami were to occur right now, you might throw this book down, leave the place that you’re sitting (screaming most likely), only to arrive at your next destination with a particular opinion of my husband, i.e., that he is uncaring and perverse, and that his statement would be grounds for divorce.
But you would be wrong, because you’d have missed the following point: that this is one of the bravest and most loving things my husband could have said. Because he knows that the best thing he can do when he hears panic in my voice is to give me comfort. If he were married to another person (i.e., someone normal), that might mean saying something like, “It’s okay, honey. I’m sure this is just a temporary situation, but if it isn’t, I will still love you, even if 25 percent of your face never moves again.” But for me, the most direct route to comfort is for him to say the most wickedly inappropriate thing he can think of, even—and especially—if it is at my expense.
Marriage Quotient: 85
(Getting the hang of it? Good. Let’s continue.)
EXHIBIT B
We are on the freeway in heavy traffic. He is driving. I am in the passenger seat, staring out the window, sending beams of anger and loathing directly at the right side of his face via my left shoulder. We are in the middle of a fight. I can’t recall the subject, probably something important like my inability to put my shoes in the closet when I come home. I am so angry that I deduce the only logical course of action is to throw myself out of the car. I estimate that we are going fifteen miles an hour; at that speed I could easily open the door, jump out, tuck, and roll. At worst I’ll suffer a sprain, maybe a concussion, both of which seem in the moment to be preferable to sitting in this car with HIM. Then traffic picks up, and my tuck-and-roll plan is foiled. I am still angry when we pull up to the pizza place.
Here is where you may conclude that this story expresses a low MQ, perhaps around 40, and that our relationship is doomed because invariably, one day we will find ourselves in a traffic jam that does not let up, I will succeed at throwing myself from the car, and the husband will find himself on trial for manslaughter because of my inability to accurately gauge traffic speed.
Again, you’d be wrong. Because that is not where this story ends. It continues.
Now we are waiting at the bar of the pizza restaurant, aggressively not speaking to each other. From out of nowhere, a gentleman stumbles toward us; it’s clear that he is tipsy. He sways back and forth while making polite small talk and then turns to the husband and poses the question, “Do you like your wife’s stinky drawers?” The eyes of the husband go wide, at which point he clears his throat and mumbles something like, “Begyourpardon?”
The man delivers a stirring monologue, in the middle of this family restaurant, about how deeply he loves his wife and how much he appreciates and reveres her “stinky drawers.” And while he rhapsodizes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cotton handkerchief to wipe his brow; only after he mops and refolds does it become clear that the handkerchief is not a handkerchief but is, in fact, a pair of his wife’s aforementi
oned stinky drawers.
Without a word, the husband smiles and grabs my hand. I take his gesture both as a signal to me that (a) should this social interaction get any weirder, he will protect me; also (b) to indicate that if he must experience this stranger-than-fiction moment, he is glad to be sharing it with me.
The man bids us adieu, then stumbles out of the restaurant and into a cab, headed for, I’m guessing, his home and his probably pantyless wife. Moments after that the husband and I are sitting in a booth, eating pizza, laughing, and thanking the universe for providing us with moments like this. And when we return home that night, I put my shoes away.
Marriage Quotient: 74
EXHIBIT C
The husband has encouraged me to take a night off with friends while he stays home and takes care of our daughter, who is about a year old at this point.
I am driving with my friend Renee. When my cell phone rings, I ask Renee to answer the call; she does. It’s the husband. She puts him on speakerphone.
“Hi!” I say.
“Hey . . .” His voice is strained, his breath shallow. I recognize this “hey”; something bad has happened.
“Is everything all right?”
“I—I have to ask you something . . .”
I pull over to the side of the road. “What’s wrong? Is the baby okay?”
“Did you . . . Have you . . .” His voice through the speaker is quiet and strained. “Were you sewing today?”
“Was I . . . sewing?” I ask, just to make sure I’ve heard him right.
“Were you sewing?” he asks again.
“No. Why?”
“Are you sure?” His voice becomes louder, more insistent. “You’re sure you weren’t recently sewing?”
I look to Renee in the passenger seat. She is as confused and disturbed by this line of questioning as I am.
“What happened?” I ask. “Did you step on a needle or something?”
“It’s—it’s bad. Are you sure you weren’t sewing?
“Why do you keep asking me that? Oh, God, is the baby hurt? Did she eat a pin?! Will you please tell me what’s happened?”
He takes a breath. “I just went to the bathroom. I think—I . . . I passed a huge tapeworm. Oh, my God, I’m never eating sushi again . . .”
I pause to think for a moment. “Oh, wait. I did floss my teeth this morning . . .”
Silence. Then, the sound of a toilet lid opening.
“Oh. Yeah. That was it.”
We hang up the phone, and Renee and I continue on our way to TGI Fridays.
This example displays deep strength at the core of our marriage. In the first place, the husband showed care and concern when he encouraged me to spend the evening with a friend; he also demonstrated his trust in me when he bravely shared his fears and concerns with me. I, in turn, showed deep abiding respect and restraint by waiting until we had hung up the phone to laugh with my friend in silent stereo until our faces were soaked and our diaphragm muscles were destroyed.
Marriage Quotient: 83 (plus 10 bonus points for letting me tell this story) = 93
EXHIBIT D
I am standing in the shower, enjoying the peaceful sensation of warm water cascading down my body when, unbeknownst to me, the husband strolls into the bathroom unannounced and unleashes a sneeze that is so loud and violent—and, dare I say, hostile—it’s as though a bullet has been fired directly into my ear: it’s an atomic bomb of sound and snot that startles me so badly it gives me whiplash . . . naked whiplash. My immediate reaction is to bellow a loud and angry, “WHAT THE FUUUUUUHHH—!!!” Then I stop, compose myself, and utter a polite “Gesundheit,” to which he responds with a quiet, “Thank you.”
You may conclude that this moment demonstrates my ability to transcend petty feelings and momentary frustration. I would respectfully disagree and submit that if he loved me more, he’d figure out some way, perhaps through surgical means, to never, ever sneeze again. Clearly, this is an area that needs to be worked on. By him.
Marriage quotient: 17
I could go on, but I think you get my points:
1.that what happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas, but leads to a Jewish wedding
2.that my social theory and math skills are questionable at best
3.that partial facial paralysis, within the bonds of matrimony, can in some cases be considered a turn-on
And if you take only one thing away, let it be this: that marriage works because of its power to act as a buffer against the human trials of fear, anger, sadness, and some strange man’s wife’s underwear.
fourteen
THE BINKY WAR DIARIES
DECEMBER 28, 2006, 11:26 P.M.
Our daughter is a few hours old and emitting a sound that could shatter a pair of glass eyes. She has been crying since the moment she flew out of me, and neither my husband nor I have the foggiest idea how to stop it.
The husband looks like a character in a psychological thriller who has just discovered that everything in his life is a lie, while I—a person who has just been torn apart from the inside out by a thrashing, indignant nine-pound garden slug—can’t be trusted to have a useful thought about anything right now.
Suddenly, there is a wizened old nurse in the room, though neither of us saw her enter. She leans over the baby and sticks a complimentary green pacifier into the baby’s yell-hole. The baby closes her gaping maw around it, begins to suckle, and then is quiet, for the first time in her life.
The H and I are struck mute with gratitude. The thousand- year-old nurse says, “You’re lucky. Not all babies take to it. That Binky will bring you a lot of peace in the days ahead.” And as the ancient woman slips out of the room, that is exactly how we feel: lucky.
FEBRUARY 23, 2007
They call the first three months of a baby’s life “the fourth trimester.” I call it the apocalypse. There is so much sleeplessness and tears and vomit and random bodily fluids projecting themselves skyward—it’s the third circle of hell, and it smells like the inside of a Lollapalooza porta-potty.
And the Binky, the Binky has turned into a tool of the chaos. Sure, it stops the screaming, but only when it’s firmly embedded in the child’s scream-cave, which is almost never, because this demanding beast hasn’t figured out how to use her G.D. hands yet. Her tendency to fumble and drop the pacifier is endless, and unless one of us dives from forty feet across the room to retrieve and stick it back in her mouth within .05 nanoseconds, she unleashes a 90-decibel warning that sounds like a backward Latin curse from the Book of the Dead.
Look, I understand that it’s “illegal” to duct tape a pacifier to a baby’s face. Fine. But we can’t even glue it to her hand? Since when are we living in a fascist state?!
JUNE 12, 2007
We are hostages in our own home. We cannot leave the house without having a minimum of three pacifiers within arm’s reach at all times. Last week we were stuck in freeway traffic when I realized that, although there are upwards of forty-two Binkies littering the floor of our living room (not counting the seven lint-crusted ones under the couch), there was not one to be found in the car, where we were.
For two solid hours.
Of screaming.
Worse, now that she’s teething, she’s begun grinding Binky back and forth in her porcelain nubs so that it makes a low, ominous SCREEEEEEE SCREEEEEEE SCREEEEEEE sound, like something out of a Japanese horror film.
A friend suggested cutting a pinhole in Binky to “make it less satisfying for her,” so I spent last night sticking safety pins through every one of her Binkies. It made me feel desperate and dirty, like some girl popping holes in condoms on prom night. When I sneaked the compromised pacifiers back into her rotation, the child didn’t seem to care—she went on happily sucking on Binky. The only difference is that it now whistles in a high-pitched tone that causes my ears to bleed.
I know I should be thankful for something that gives my child comfort and joy, but I’m not. The H thinks I’m resentful because
of all the breast-feeding problems the pacifier caused.* He put it this way: “It’s like when a dude gets cock-blocked by another guy. You got tit-blocked by a Binky.”
So yeah, Diary, you could say that I’m just a tad resentful.
MARCH 6, 2008
Spent the day Googling speech impediments and orthodontic expenses and staring into the kid’s open mouth while she napped. I am now positive that Binky is morphing her little smile into a Deliverance-style maze of buckteeth and racism.
Being that the husband is out of town for the weekend, I decide to take action. (I’ll admit that my record in situations like these is not so great. Last time he left town, I got an asymmetrical haircut; the time before that, I signed up for the “Beef of the Month Club” from a guy driving through the neighborhood in a ’79 custom van. But this urge takes hold of me, and I am powerless to ignore it.)
I let the kid watch eleven back-to-back episodes of Caillou while I rounded up all of the pacifiers in the house and hid them in a bag in the garage. Then guilt and paranoia kicked in, so I pumped her up with candy and chased her around the house, tickling her until she passed out from sheer exhaustion.
As I laid her down in her crib, I silently congratulated myself for taking Binky by the balls. This is going to work, because parenting is instinctual—in a way that buying beef products is not.
MARCH 7, 2008, 3:00 A.M.
I awoke when I heard a noise in the middle of the night, but when I got up to investigate I saw that it was just the dog humping my slipper. I tiptoed past the kid’s room, where I could hear her breathing deeply, sleeping soundly, making it through her first night without Binky.
That passy’s ass is grass.
The husband will be pleased with my success. He will also be annoyed by it. It will be a total win-win for me.
MARCH 7, 2008, 6:30 A.M.
The kid is still sleeping so soundly that I have time to shower and make her pancakes for breakfast. Cheers to the power of intuition . . . and to the effectiveness of cold turkey, well done!
How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane Page 9