Text message conversations in which I rock #54--Kim packs me a lunch

Because no one will believe me later. Or care.

Things I should not have said on my anniversary getaway

"Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Bam! I'm out of here."

"Did you pay the gas bill?"

"Mind if I call you Mother?"

"I shouldn't have had those burritos."

"Remember, Two and a Half Men is on in ten minutes."

"Here's one my ex taught me."

"Wuh-oh."

"Did...did I just get a text? You mind if I check really quick?"

"What do you think the guys are up to right now?"

"There. That oughta hold you another six months."

"I slipped the maid a twenty. She'll be back here in ten minutes."

"I slipped the manager a burrito. He'll be back here in--oh, that's him now."

"It became clear after my colonoscopy that I had to kill her..."

No jury in the world will convict me of murdering the Woman I Love. Why, you ask? Simplicity itself.

Under doctor's orders, I had to go and get one of these damnable procedures last week. Nothing earth-shattering as far as why, I assure you, although the fact that I'd rather get medical instruments shoved in me than go to work for the day speaks volumes about the power of the mind over its environment. Still, I'd be a liar if I didn't confess to a selfish motive for going: A really good quip.

I'd practiced it all day and all night long the twenty-four hours preceding. I would awaken from the anesthesia and sit up in bed, sharp and alert. The doctor would come by, clipboard in hand, a carefully-arranged concerned look on his face, and ask me how I was doing.

And I would reply, oh-so-wittily, "Well, doc, hope it was as good for you as it was for me."

And the entire operating room would erupt in laughter, cancel my bill and send me home with a cigar and a clean bill of help. Nothing could be simpler.

But oh no. Leave it to Kim to screw it all up.

I did, in fact, awaken blearily, in a room I didn't recognize. There were, in fact, people in there. The doctor did come by, and I think he was carrying a clipboard. "Well now, how are we doing?" he asked me cheerfully.

"Ug," I rasped. "Ug uh ug."

"Yeah, you'll be a little tongue-tied for a bit," he said, patting my shoulder sympathetically. "Don't worry. You'll come around."

The Woman of My Life chose then to show up. "Oh, he's awake," she said flatly. "What a relief."

"Yeah, you'll probably have to cook him something tonight," the doctor said to her. "Maybe keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't try anything too strenuous."

"Fat chance," she muttered, watching me try to sit up. "That there is more than he's moved all month."

"So, you feeling any better?" the doctor asked me immediately afterwards, hoping to get the niceties out of the way."

"Well...doc..." I started, laboring mightily to form syllables with a tongue and mouth that felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. "Well...well doc..."

"Good, good," he said, glancing at his clipboard. "Okay, let's see, you need to eat something soon, then take a nap. Get dressed, and, as long as your insurance payment processes okay in the next twenty minutes, we'll let you go home."

"Was it...was...was it..." I breathed out, grasping mightily at the few remaining seconds before the joke went flat.

"It went fine," he reassured me. "You're as healthy as a horse. And almost as intelligent."

The room erupted in laughter. I cast them all a withering stare. My joke was better. As long as I could get it out in time.

"Was it--" I began, increasing in strength and confidence.

"It didn't show anything to worry about," he said, glancing at his watch. "Now, I've got to run. Those nine holes aren't going to play themselves."

"Thanks, doctor," Kim said to him, grasping his arm in a neighborly fashion. "I'm sure it was as good for him as it was for you."

Ten times the previous laughter filled the room. Nurses came over and squeezed her hand. The male attendant came over and nudged me. "You got a keeper here, pal," he said, yanking my IV out of my arm with all the sympathy of a pile of rocks. "Hold on to her."

Oh I will. You have no idea...

"Okay, honey. You just rest easy. But are you
sure I have to be standing on a ladder
in a puddle of water to do this?"

A Moderate "Engagement Status" suggestion for Facebook

To Whom It May Concern (aka that young jerk who built this site and is worth the price of a small country...)

I have been a Facebook user for about a year now, and I wish to register a complaint. Your "relationship" possibilities are severely limited at best. In truth, they stink. You have "single," "married," "in a relationship with," and "bitterly divorced from." In my current situation, this will not do, as I am planning a wedding with a woman who hates the terms "engaged," "fiancee," and "willing to be seen with him in public."

I have compiled a list of possible relationship statuses I might be able to use, as opposed to the ones you already have. Please consider them as friendly suggestions and not irritable rejoinders to an otherwise shoddy social networking site.

"...is chained in impending matrimony to ..."
This would work well, as "chained in" seems to me a more accurate verbal phrase, connoting duty, fidelity and, yes, the mandatory.

"... is successful in boozing up and weakening the marriage-related resistance of ..."
As it happens, I had to pour about two gallons of Thunderbird down her throat before she would even agree to sit quietly while I spelled out a life together. After that, all she required was mimosas.

"... is temporarily insane regarding legal commitment to ...
What was I thinking? Dear God in Heaven, what was I thinking? I already got her to pick up the tab for dinner; I don't need that again!

"... is pushing his luck concerning commitment with ..."
As she never fails to remind me. Which reminds me. I'm pushing my luck.

How to Propose Marriage

Like most financially strapped, psychologically unstable, manic-depressive suburbanites, you're probably contemplating getting hitched. Which means you have to propose to her. (Or propose to him, since, as I've been told, women are now allowed to approach men as equals. Whatever that's about.) Regardless, you now have to ask the woman of your dreams to spend the rest of your life with her in wedded bliss and with a deficit-inducing middle income tax hike. This means you'll have to find the right words with which to deliver your proposal, words that will moisten her eyes, excite her passion and cripple her common sense.

Of course, since you're not me, your proposal is, without question, lame and stupid, with all the romance of a piece of fish left under a car seat overnight. No matter. Select a proposal from one of the following templates, and get ready to enjoy a matrimony which will, based on actuarial tables, weight and true sexual preference, will last 12.3 years before she leaves you for a tax accountant. Congratulations!

#1. Proposal Through Mime

Me: (elaborate pantomime of grace and beauty)

Her: (watching)I'm sorry, I don't understand...you're in a box? You're finding the door? You're choking in the box and you can't get out? A door...in front of me? I don't get it.

Me: That's because you're stupid. Anyway, let's get married.

#2. The Magic of Puppet Theater

Dexter, the Hand-Lover: Hey Kim! It's a real good idea if you marry Gregg!

Her: That's not a puppet. It's just a sock with a mouth painted on it in White-Out.

Me: Yeah, but since I think I've got you cold anyway, I didn't really feel a need to put a lot of effort into this.

#3. The Sublimity of Haiku

Me: The woman of my dreams/ Is off to France as we speak/ How bout you instead?

Her: I'm hungry. What are you making for dinner?

Me: A wedding imminent,/ Or one that is eminent?/ Whatever. Wed me.

Her: Are you getting these off those fortune cookies there?

Me: Hackneyed poetry/ Stirs the intellectual/ But not a dumbass.

#4. Lexical and Syntactic Diagramming of Proposals 101

Me: If 'you' is the object of the verb phrase 'wants to marry you,' then what is the noun phrase that functions as a subject?

Her: I have an English degree, you jackass.

Me: What's the subject?

Her: ...Thunder Rod.

Me: And which word is the adjective?

Her: Conjugate this. (obscene gesture)

Me: ...That will be all for today.

#5. Use a Word Problem

Me: Gregg is traveling from Chicago to the Star Trek Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas in a car going 65 mph over a distance of 1,752 miles while Kim is hitchhking from Phoenix, at a distance of 296 miles. Gregg's car is low on oil and in general shoddy condition, which hampers his rate of progress by 15 percent incrementally. Meanwhile, Kim is wearing her 'Love me for my mind' outfit, and so will manage to catch a ride averaging 15 miles from every third passer-by. If Gregg leaves his destination at 10:27 a.m. Wednesday after downing two pints of vodka, and Kim leaves hers at 7 a.m. the preceding day wearing high heels, what time and date will their wedding take place?

Her: That depends. Will there be pie?

Me: I guess...

Her: Right after the pie is gone, then.