Lawfully Wedded Husband
Page 20
“Honey, of course having a dishwasher is a sign of moral weakness,” he replied. “You’re the one who’s deluding yourself by saying it’s not.”
So the next day, without consulting Mike, I went out and bought a portable dishwasher off Craigslist, which enraged him when he found out what I’d done, and then that night I cooked dinner using every single container in the kitchen.
The problem, we realized gradually, was that I had grown up in a home where the person who cooked the food was exempt from doing the dishes, while Mike had grown up in a home where the person who cooked the food also did the dishes (usually this person was him). So when he cooks, he uses one bowl or pot or pan and cleans up as he goes and after dinner there are exactly three things to be cleaned: the bowl or pot or pan he cooked the food in, the utensils he made and ate it with, and the plates he ate it from. Whereas when I cook, the list of things that need to be cleaned swells by, for an average dinner, another two bowls, three pots, five pans, six knives, the garlic press, the colander, the Cuisinart, the blender, the counter, the floor, and occasionally the ceiling. (You can see how I would be inconvenienced by the disappearance of the pot and pan lids I put in the basement when I was mad at Mike, which are STILL MISSING, by the way.) So for the first several months of our cohabitation, I would create these extravagant messes in the kitchen and then not clean them up, because that was Mike’s job, while Mike sat and simmered in growing resentment and didn’t clean them up, because it was my job. “Every time you called me and told me you’d baked me a pie,” he later told me, “I was filled with dread of what I was going to come home and see in the kitchen.”
Eventually I persuaded Mike to install an actual dishwasher, putting the portable one in the basement; over time we’ve both managed to move toward the middle, and these days the cooking and the cleaning up both migrate vaguely between us. But it’s too bad Z Gallerie doesn’t have a mirror-and-feather-covered dishwasher, because this battered old portable thing isn’t going to last long.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,409.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,572.
Thursday, September 23
Today is the day I had to send the travel agent the balance of the honeymoon payment, but, inexplicably, no publisher called me at the last minute to offer me a huge advance for my next book, and no producer called me at the last minute to offer me a huge advance for my next show, even though I was totally ready for the money to appear, so the only way I was able to pay for the honeymoon was to steal one of Mike’s checks, forge his signature, and deposit it in my account.
The way I see it, I’m still technically paying for the honeymoon. I mean, it was my account number I gave the travel agent over the phone, after all.
And I’ll totally pay Mike back, some day, probably, though once we’re happily ensconced in our urban oasis I’m sure he won’t even notice the money is missing.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,270.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,363.
Friday, September 24
Here is how my conversation with the guy in the formalwear store yesterday began.
FADE IN:
INT. A FORMALWEAR STORE--DAY
Mike and Joel enter, thrumming with excitement about their impending nuptials.
As Guy in the Formalwear Store comes obsequiously up to him:
JOEL
Hi, I called earlier. My fiancé and I are here to be fitted for morning clothes.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Oh, yes. Step this way and let me take your measurements.
MIKE
Please don’t tell us what the numbers are.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
There are no numbers in this store.
JOEL
We love you.
Here is how it continued in my fantasy world:
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
All right, here are your sets of morning clothes, each complete with top hat, dove gray waistcoat, dashing ascot, shoes, and lemon gloves.
JOEL
(as they exit) Thank you so much!
FADE TO BLACK.
Here, alas, is how it actually continued:
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
(indicating dummy with set of morning clothes on it)
All right, so we’ll get together sets of morning clothes for both of you with the options you requested, using this combination as a base.
JOEL
Great! I see the waistcoat is just a false front, though; I’d love an actual waistcoat.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Why? You’ll just sweat through the whole ceremony.
JOEL
You’re probably right, but I’d still love an actual waistcoat.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Well, we don’t have any.
JOEL
(after a pause)
Hmm. Maybe I can just wear one of the ones I have at home.
MIKE
Sweetheart, I’m not sure any of those still fit you.
JOEL
Shut up.
(to Guy in the Formalwear Store)
Okay. How about a top hat?
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Gee, we don’t have many of those.
JOEL
(under his breath)
But you’re a formalwear store.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Let me go check in the back and see what’s in stock.
He leaves. He returns with a gray top hat.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
This is the only one we have, and I
think it’s probably too big for you.
JOEL
Why don’t I try it on, just to see?
He tries the hat on. It engulfs him.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
JOEL
You’re sure there are no more back there?
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
There are, but they’re black.
JOEL
Oh, great! Could you take a look, please?
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
You can’t wear a black top hat with morning clothes at a wedding. Only gray.
JOEL
Actually, that’s a myth that sprang up when they stopped manufacturing silk plush after the last looms used to weave it were destroyed in the owner’s bitter feud with his brother, who--
Guy in the Formalwear Store exits mid-sentence. He returns with two black top hats.
JOEL
Oh, thanks!
He tries one of the hats on. It fits. Mike tries the other hat on. It also fits.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
This just looks so wrong to me.
JOEL
No, I promise, the gray top hat thing really is a myth, it--
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
I know what it’s supposed to look like.
JOEL
(to Mike, under his breath)
Is there a copy of Modern Bride I can hit this guy with?
(to Guy in the formalwear store)
Well, I appreciate your patience with us. If I ask for an ascot, it’ll be real, right? Not a clip-on?
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Yes, it’ll be real.
JOEL
That’s terrific. Now, about the gloves--
MIKE
Joel, I really don’t want to wear gloves. Can we leave?
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
Come and pick these up the day before the wedding.
JOEL
Thank you.
GUY IN THE FORMALWEAR STORE
It still looks wrong.
JOEL
No, really, they--
MIKE
Honey.
JOEL
Thank you.
(under his breath as they leave)
It’s a myth.
FADE TO BLACK.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 4,026.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,188.
Saturday, September 25
I went by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today to fill out some paperwork. It had spaces for “Bride” and “Groom.”
“You folks need to fix this,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” said the obviously lesbian woman (blue spiky hair, three nose rings, “Dykes Rule!” button) behind the counter.
So I crossed out “Bride” and wrote in “Groom.” And I laughed at how an entire architecture of prejudice could be toppled with the stroke of a pen.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,865.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,012.
Sunday, September 26
“You should talk about our wedding as part of the fight against injustice,” I said to Rachel, “but it can’t be just about fighting marriage inequality or even fighting discrimination against same-sexers. That’s not enough. Injustice in the world reaches so much farther and so much deeper than that. If people leave the wedding thinking only about trying to make the world better for same-sexers then I feel like we’ll have failed. They need to be thinking about trying to make the world better for everybody who’s oppressed, in any way, anywhere.”
“Got it,” she said. “Do you have a ketubah yet?”
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,644.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 4,012.
Monday, September 27
WE HAVE A KETUBAH! And it’s purple! I have no idea what led Mike to approve it even though it’s such an extravagant color; I think it was at least in part that it looks Artistic. But I don’t care, because at last I can stop worrying about the damn thing.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,453.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,978.
Tuesday, September 28
Yesterday we received an RSVP in the mail from Mike’s cousins (who we already knew wouldn’t be able to come). It read something like this:
Dear Mike and Joel,
Thank you for the invitation to your wedding. Since we’re Catholic and follow the Church’s teaching, we can’t accept, but we send you all our love and hope that the day is a wonderful one.
Love,
George and Frances
At first when I read this I was just nonplussed. I mean, it’s 2010; who sends an RSVP like that in 2010?
But as the day wore on, I started to get angry. First of all, the correct way to decline an invitation is, “George and Frances regret that they will be unable to accept the very kind invitation of Joel Derfner and Michael Combs on Sunday, the tenth of October.” Note that doing so involves no mention of why George and Frances are declining or what they might or might not believe about the wedding and its validity.
I showed the note to Mike when he got home. “Look, Joel,” he said, “Frances is the one who talks about everybody in the family behind their backs.”
“Maybe she didn’t understand what she was doing.”
“She understood exactly what she was doing. Remember, she read your last book and then called everybody she could think of to talk about how scandalous it was that I was dating a stripper.”
“She did what?”
“Whoops. I thought I told you that.”
“But she was so nice to me when I met her.”
“That’s Frances for you. I’m sure she was drunk when she wrote this, anyway. Just let it go.”
But I couldn’t let it go. I grew angrier and angrier, and when we went to bed I lay awake, tossing and turning. Finally I had an idea, got up, did some Googling, and found that an organization such as I had in mind did indeed exist. This allowed me to write (on handmade Nepalese paper, no less) and send the following letter today:
Dear George and Frances,
Thank you so much for your kind note; of course we understand why you can’t attend. We felt our wedding wouldn’t be a true celebration, however, without having you involved in some way, so we made donations in your honor to Freedom to Marry and to SNAP, the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests.
We hope you’re well and we look forward to seeing you some time soon.
Love,
Joel and Mike
(Sometimes even I am impressed by my evil genius.)
When I told Mike about the response I’d written, he laughed and said, “You should send it. It would serve her right.”
“Oh, I already did.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Okay, I’m joking.”
“You’re not joking, are you?”
“No.”
Let this be a lesson, by the by, that etiquette is neither “stupid rules about which fork to use” nor “just about making people feel comfortable,” both of which descriptions I have seen offered as definitions. Dinnerware and social lubrication do indeed find themselves under the umbrella of etiquette, but they are joined there by techniques for smiling sweetly at your adversaries as you cut their hearts out.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,322.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,867.
Wednesday, September 29
We forgot to buy rings.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,235.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,745.
Thursday, September 30
The Department of Justice is visiting Mike’s hospital—I think this has something to do with the woman who showed up in the emergency room, waited for twenty-five hours to be seen, and died, though I must point out that this happened a full three weeks before Mike started working there; eventually they named a conference room after her, which makes me angry, because I think she should have gotten at least a wing if not an entire building—so I’ve volunteered to take care of the rings.
I have determined that, given the postage for the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway, along with the portion of my own money I have left to spend on the honeymoon, my budget for wedding rings is twenty dollars. I would just steal more money from Mike, but I think he’s discovered the earlier theft, because he’s moved his checkbook to somewhere I can’t find it.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,178.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,745.
Friday, October 1
I am making very little headway on the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway entries. I have done the calculations and if I allocate eight hours per day to sleep and an hour and a half to meals and hygiene, then to get them all done in time I have to fill out roughly one card or envelope every waking minute.
This is not going to happen.
So I posted an ad on Craigslist a few hours ago, under the heading $50 to help me with tedious task on sunday. I couldn’t decide which category to put it in, so after considering Labor and Event I finally went with Writing, figuring that sometimes it’s okay to be exceedingly literal. I wrote a funny paragraph describing the situation and then said, “The only requirements are that you have decent handwriting and that you be entertaining, because if I’m going to spend four hours with you doing a task this boring I want the conversation to take my mind off the soul-numbing tedium.”
I’ve received a number of responses so far, but only a few from people who were even mildly amusing, so I’ve contacted them, along with one who wasn’t particularly amusing but whose email signature was the URL for his profile on modelmayhem.com. I took a look and wrote him back immediately, forbearing to tell him that I would double his pay if he did the gig shirtless or that I was open to more involved arrangements as well.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,078.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,745.
&nb
sp; Saturday, October 2
It looks as if I’ll have four or five people to help me tomorrow (depending on whether I ask the model to fill out cards and envelopes or just sit or stand, godlike, off to the side).
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: 3,078.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: 3,745.
Sunday, October 3
God hates me and does not want me to win an apartment in Manhattan. None of the Craigslist people I emailed with showed up. I’m trying to figure out how to continue communicating with the model without being stalkerish, but so far I’m coming up empty.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out: Never mind.
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: Fuck you, HGTV.
Monday, October 4
From: Joel Derfner
To: Mike Combs
Time: 11:26 a.m.
Honey, I found some rings. Take a look at this URL. We can replace them after the wedding, but at least they’ll do for now.
From: Mike Combs
To: Joel Derfner
Time: 1:13 p.m.
At $7.99 apiece, what could go wrong?
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway cards left to fill out:
HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway envelopes left to address: