by Phil Stern
Look, despite what you may think I’m not opposed to marriage in the slightest. The ideal of marriage, anyway. If the situation was right, I’d get married tomorrow.
But how do you know the girl of your dreams won’t go nuts? I don’t mean a little strange, but flat out, fucking crazy. How do you know? See, that’s the problem. And until we actually invent a crystal ball I don’t see how it’s going to be solved.
And look, it goes both ways, I know that. Guys routinely gamble away paychecks, drink to excess, become angry and abusive. I work with men who routinely sleep around. Oh, they love their wives and kids. What proud fathers they are! But look, pussy is pussy, right?
Actually Sophia had it right with those Mistress articles. I know she took a lot of shit for them, but she hit the nail on the head.
And you know what? Of all the millions who read her stuff, I was the only one who knew. Who could read between the lines, and hear the anguish of the inner-Sophia, the little girl crushed underneath the freight train of her childhood.
I know, Soph. It shouldn’t be that way. Life is long and hard, and often lonely, but there should be something to count on at the end of the day. Those women you wrote of, and all the millions more like them, deserved more from their husbands. You’re absolutely right.
And you deserved more too. As did I. That’s why I think of that other universe, the one where we’re together, rich and famous, living happily ever after.
HAYLEY SYKES
I’m so angry right now I can hardly even THINK!
Remember Beth, my friend who teaches the tards? She just got fired! You know why? Because one of her fucking tards took a yellow sticker, that Beth had just given him for doing something good, and pasted it over his own eye!
Here’s how it happened. This kid’s name is Richard, but everybody calls him Dick.
And by the way, let me stop right here. Who the hell decided guys named Richard should be nicknamed Dick? Look, if a woman’s full name was Persephone, let’s say, no one would call her Pussy for short. Can you imagine that? Hey, look, here’s Pussy! Let’s invite Pussy to our sleep over! Hey, does anybody know where Pussy is? I mean, if a group of girls talked that way, they’d all be branded heretical lesbians on the spot! Even as a text message that would look silly.
But guys want to call each other Dick. Why? Maybe if the guy was a porn star it would make some sense, but even then I’d think they’d call him Big Dick, or maybe Super Cock. Yeah, that would be cool!
Or how about Super Kock? All those tard fantasy authors change out a “c” for a “k” all the time (you know, spelling “magic” as “magik”), so there must be something to it. And Kock sounds more Jewish, so maybe it would appeal more to people like Steve.
Anyway, Super Kock could be like a porn super hero! He could wear tight pants and a cape, and fly around battling criminals. On his chest would be an outline of a massive kock, fully erect, ready for action! In the first episode he’d battle a gang of crime syndicate bikini models, who model by day and steal by night! Super Kock would corner them in the bank vault, still wearing their bikinis, slowly close the vault door, and then they’d all have sex. That would show those girls!
Look, I already told you I like watching porn. Deal with it.
I might even try writing porn. Anything’s better than being a teacher.
Which brings us back to Beth. All right, so she’s in her classroom with all her tards, just trying to stay sane, going over geography.
“Class,” Beth told me she said. “What state do we live in?”
The answers included Russia, Jamaica, and Alaska, but young Dick, sitting in the front row, finally blurted out Florida.
“That’s right, Dick!” Beth was good at that, sounding all happy for the tards. “You got that right!”
So then Dick tells her they lived in America, our country had 50 states, and even knew that Georgia bordered Florida. Wow! He was like a tard genius or something. All the other tards just looked stupid or began crying. One threw a pencil at Dick and had to be sent to the principal.
See what I mean? Tards would be tough to take all day.
So then it’s almost time for lunch, when Tard Guards (their real title is “Special Needs Advocates”) come to take all the tards, en masse, down to a special cafeteria. Beth calls this her “jail break,” because for her it’s like getting out of prison. An hour later, at the end of lunch, Beth says she’s “re-sentenced” for the rest of the afternoon.
So anyway, just before jail break, as a reward for being smart, Beth gives Dick two yellow stickers, one for his book, and another to put on his shirt.
At first everything goes all right. Per the plan, Dick manages to paste one sticker in his book. However, when it came time to put the other yellow sticker on his shirt, another tard pulls back his chair. Dick’s head is thrown forward (Tards, I’m told, often have trouble with “spacial relationships.” I think they’re just tards.), and he plants the sticker squarely over his left eye.
So Dick throws a fit, screaming and crying, this big yellow sticker over his eye like some gay tard pirate. All the other tards laugh (like they’re any smarter, right?) and make fun of him. Beth, being the professional tard wrangler that she is, quickly soothes Dick, pulling the sticker from his eye. Dick’s happy again. The Tard Guards take everyone to lunch, and Beth has her jail break.
But that night Dick tells his mom all about his harrowing ordeal. The next day, Mother Dick calls the tard police on Beth.
You see, there’s a special government agency responsible for making sure tards aren’t mistreated. The “Office For Persons’ With Special Needs” maybe? I don’t know. Some fucking thing. So anyway, these tard police open an “investigation” into the whole matter.
Can you imagine being called into your principal’s office, on your jail break the next day, to defend yourself to the tard police? And what can you say? Yes, sir, I did provide the sticker young Dick pasted over his own eye. No, sir, I did not get permission to distribute said sticker. No, sir, I guess I didn’t properly supervise said application of said sticker to said tard. And so on, and so on. Beth wasn’t even re-sentenced for the afternoon! Instead, they just sent her home on the spot.
So now Beth’s out looking for a job. I mean, they’re still paying her until the end of the year, and she doesn’t have to babysit tards anymore, but isn’t that awful? I think it is. No one should get fired, especially not a teacher, even if they do something wrong, which Beth definitely didn’t. That’s not American.
DAVE MILLER
About two years into our marriage, Jen threw a shit fit over towels.
Late for work one morning, I’d grabbed the top towel in the linen closet before heading into the shower. Returning home that evening, my darling wife flung the towel at me as I walked through the door.
“Damn it, Dave, what the fuck are you doing!” she screeched. “Why did you use that towel!”
Stunned, I glanced down at it. “Why shouldn’t I use that towel?”
“That’s a beach towel!” Jen bellowed, fists balled at her side.
Inspecting said beach towel, I did indeed notice a pattern of sand and waves in the fabric. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem, you fucking jackass, is that now I have to wash both the beach towel AND the bath towel you should have used!” Fully enraged, she snatched the offending towel from my hand. “You’re creating more work for me, not that you give a shit, you selfish prick!”
Jen and I were going through a particularly tough time right then. After much discussion, I’d finally put my foot down over her habit of taking several new mothers out to lunch.
It had started innocently enough, Jen meeting three or four other women at a local restaurant. Instead of everyone chipping in, however, about six weeks ago Jen had gotten the idea she needed to pick up the bill every week.
“It’s the polite thing to do!” she’d ranted two days before, after I’d finally told her, in no uncertain terms,
to stop doing it.
“I don’t care, Jen,” I’d shot back. “We can’t afford a $75 lunch bill every week!”
“Oh, we can’t, huh?” Eyes narrowing, Jen smiled. “Well, maybe if my husband made more money…”
“Well I don’t, all right? I’m working my ass off and I make what I make!”
“These women,” she huffed, “are the daughters of my mother’s friends!”
“So what?”
“So what! Dave, I can’t offend these girls!” Sighing, Jen folded her arms. “Anyway, Mom suggested it would be good for appearances if I paid every week. That way people won’t question what my husband is doing…”
“Enough!” Every time she went down this road I wanted to strangle her. “Jen, let me give it to you straight. You will not, under any circumstances, take everyone out to lunch again! We can’t afford it. Period.”
“Oh, so now you want to cut me off from my friends!”
“First of all, these girls aren’t your friends. They’re strangers you’re trying to impress. And second of all, see them all you want. But do not pick up any more checks! You’ve done plenty of that.”
We argued some more until I finally picked up the phone to cancel our credit cards, which thankfully were in my name. As usual Jen ran off, shrieking that she should have never married me.
By that point the feeling was mutual. At age twenty Jen was clearly too immature for motherhood, wifehood, home ownership-hood, or even sanity-hood. But there we were.
Because if I left…ah, there was the rub. If I left, I’d be doing exactly what my father did. Abandoning my family. Even if it was all legal eagle, and I filed for separation, and then divorce, it would still essentially be the same thing.
And the finances, such as they were, wouldn’t work. I’d be forced to provide support for Jen and Mandy, all while paying rent on a place of my own. That wasn’t going to fly.
And I loved my infant daughter dearly. The overwhelming emotion I felt when staring into Mandy’s googly eyes, or watching her crawl around, was indescribable. To be separated from her, left entirely in Jen’s unbalanced hands, was unthinkable.
In the future…I don’t know. But for now it was what it was.
Even Jen’s parents grew concerned about her frame of mind. Apparently Mrs. Canton herself couldn’t believe I was the ogre of their daughter’s wild description. I’ll never forget one Wednesday evening, when Jen was out visiting her sister, Mr. and Mrs. Canton called to talk things over.
“David,” Mrs. Canton formally began, “are you really using every towel in the house without regard for Jen’s workload?”
So I explained about the bath and beach towel mix-up, the Cantons listening in awkward silence.
“So that’s it? That’s what our daughter is so upset about?” To give him credit, Mr. Canton saw most of Jen’s bullshit for what it was.
“But if our Jennifer is so distraught, there must be a reason!” On the other hand, if every defense attorney advocated as inanely as Mrs. Canton on her progeny’s behalf, no one would ever go to jail. “Surely you could be more agreeable on this score, can’t you David?”
Assuring them of my utmost cooperation, we then went onto the lunch bill. After several rounds of Mrs. Canton insisting I was trying to “shackle” her daughter, and my riposte that the only thing I was trying to shackle was our credit card bill, Mr. Canton interrupted.
“Look, Dave, it’s not always easy,” the Canton patriarch began. “And my guys tell me how hard you’ve been working. Actually, they say you may become a foreman before long.”
I found myself unduly affected at this bolt of unexpected praise. For her part, Mrs. Canton retreated into frigid silence.
“Anyway,” Mr. Canton continued, “I know you two are under a lot of pressure. We’re having a little get together at the country club Saturday night for some of our friends. Why don’t you and Jenny get a sitter and join us?”
For three days Jen “prepared” for the party, asking me each morning, as if we hadn’t discussed it before, whether I knew the location of a certain pair of shoes. “You know, my cute brown pumps with the low heel?” she’d say.
And each morning we’d go around the house, inspecting every shoe we could find, some fifty pairs in all, Jen growing more and more frustrated.
“No, Dave, my cute brown pumps with the low heel!” she’d insist. “You know what they look like!”
I had no fucking idea. They all looked alike to me. “Isn’t a pump something used to take water from a well?”
“Why do you have to be such an asshole?”
“Look, Jen,” I finally said. “Here’s forty bucks. You have plenty of shoes, but if you really need another pair, go buy them. I just don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“That’s not the point,” she pouted, tucking the cash in her pocket. “I want my cute brown pumps.”
Saturday evening we got into the car, Jen safely attired in her shoes of choice, located an hour before in her wall-length shoe rack. I never got the forty bucks back. We were already half-an-hour late.
“So, you know how to get to this country club?” I asked, settling behind the wheel.
“Jesus, Dave, I’ve told you ten times I know how to get there! Come on, drive.”
Ten minutes later, after heading generally in the direction of Suffern, I asked Jen for directions.
“Okay, let’s find somebody to stop and ask,” was her reply.
I nearly jammed on the brakes in the middle of a busy road, my hands tightening on the wheel. “Jen, damn it, you said you knew how to get there!”
“I do know how to get there!” she shouted back. “You stop and ask someone for directions, and they tell you know how to get there! Jesus, Dave, why do you have to be such an asshole?”
So after wasting another half-hour we finally arrived at the country club, Mrs. Canton greeting us at the entrance.
“My dear!” she exclaimed, kissing Jen on the cheek. “We were beginning to get worried!”
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” my darling wife replied. “Dave had trouble finding the club.”
“That’s all right, dear.” If looks could kill, Mrs. Canton’s icy glare would have ended my life right then. “No doubt if it was some pool hall or backwoods bar, David would have had no trouble locating it.”
I made a point of smiling. “Actually, Mrs. Canton, do you think they have an outhouse here? I’m not used to indoor plumbing.”
Seething, Jen’s mother whisked her daughter away, leaving me alone at the entrance.
For the next hour I chatted with Mr. Canton’s business associates, men I’d spoken to on work sites from time to time. Most of the women, Jen and her mom included, congregated to one side of the large hall, chatting about God-knows-what. When dinner was announced, everyone met their spouses again at the table.
Jen prattled on through most of the meal about clothes and furniture. At one point a guy mentioned a hot stock, leading my wife to exclaim “Oh, Dave! We simply must add that to our portfolio!” Needless to say, we had no portfolio.
After dinner Mrs. Canton made a point of taking Jen by the hand and leading her around to meet certain people. I knew I should feel insulted at my clear non-inclusion, but I just didn’t care. Noticing the slight, Mr. Canton made a point of introducing me to a few business partners.
Afterwards, riding home in the car, Jen broke down what every other woman at the party had been wearing, including designers, colors, what “season” they were from, and whether they matched their specific type of shoes. I was astounded. She had an almost photographic memory for this kind of detail. It was like idiot savant-type stuff.
“Well, Dave,” she concluded. “What do you think of all this?”
“Wow. Great. That’s amazing, dear. You really have an eye for this kind of thing.” Casting an approving look over at the passenger seat, I smiled. “You could be a fashion reporter some day.”
“But you have nothing to say?”
&nb
sp; “About what?”
“Clothes! Shoes! Dresses! What do you think I’m talking about?” Clearly frustrated, Jen folded her arms. “And did you have to be such a bore at the table? My goodness, Dave, you hardly said a word!”
“I was having a good time, honey.”
“Well, you didn’t impress anybody, that’s for sure! Mom thought you came off very poorly.”
“Your mother, from across the room, was criticizing my social skills?”
“Well, it was pretty obvious.”
I laughed. “Your mother’s the one who’s pretty obvious, Jen.”
Several moments went by in uncomfortable silence.
“You know why I’ve been asking you about my shoes these past several days?” Jen finally asked. “And talking about fashion and stuff?”
Because you’re a shallow, crazy bitch, was my silent reply. “No, dear. I have no idea.”
“Well, in my book…” Jen’s latest self-help book, the cover showing a group of insanely happy women underneath the caption “EMPOWER YOURSELF!” “…it says to empower yourself by getting your husband talking about things that interest you.”
“And you took that to mean that you should prattle on endlessly about women’s shoes and clothes?”
“Yes!” she insisted. “I like shoes and clothes! So by getting you interested in them, a pre-existing Topic Of Relevance in my own Personal Life Space, I’m empowering myself within our relationship!”
Letting out a sigh, I concentrated on the road ahead. “Listen, Jen, it’s been a long night. Why don’t we just…”
“But I see now,” she stiffly continued, “that you’re unable to meet me halfway. Perhaps you can’t even understand these things, no matter how much I try to teach you!”
