THERE IS NONE OF THAT!

The other day I advised someone that tobacco mixtures containing Latakia and Turkish are "guaranteed wife repellent". This in regards to a product he intended to sample. He mentioned that his wife already makes him stand at the end of the yard any time he lights his briar, and then speculated that I had just made crystal clear why at my age I wasn't married yet.
I let the remark stand; no point going into the details.
Or the analysis.

I would've liked to have been blessed with a somewhat more normal domestic life. And malleable offspring, whose young flexible minds could be molded into brilliant personalities. But the most interesting and attractive women tend towards strong independent streaks and consequently avoid commitment and even contact, and one is averse to experimentation with standard issue other numbers.
We've all seen those couplings go wrong after a few years.

When both parties are more mature, and have become even more familiar with each other -- often within the first decade after tying the knot -- they realize that the person they thought they knew was not the person they thought they married.
'Good lord', she will think one day, 'he really doesn't have ANYTHING on his mind other than baseball and pizza'. And sex. Far too much sex.
And he, for his part, will grudgingly admit that shopping for footwear and handbags seriously makes him barf. Although she's still a darn fine thing in his more animalistic eye. Though far too sexually hungry.

[As a side-track, television broadcasters thoroughly understand this situation. That explains the ever-expanding selection of sports channels and athletic events, as well as the fact that there are now hundreds of shop-by-television options and any number of mind-numbing reality shows featuring tacky blondes acting badly (behaving normally, in other words).
This is why I don't watch television.]

Physically men and women are attracted to each other. Intellectually they've been conditioned to be moronic in entirely different ways. Sometimes the only thing that forms the basis for their relationship is happy groping.
Baseball, Vuitton, and sex are not a sufficient foundation.
At least I don't think they are.
I might be wrong.

However, having reached mature middle-age, I do not have any unrealistic optimism about the chances anymore. I've spent too much time sneering at handbags and strenuously avoiding baseball and other sweaty testosteronic spectacles to fit in with anybody's ideal of mate-material. And given that so many women object to pipe-smoking and evenings spent quietly reading, the chances of running into someone who actually thinks those are both pretty darn cool are fairly slim.
Increasingly so now that I'm significantly past my twenties.
Happy groping would be nice. But it's quite unlikely.
And I'll pass on the baseball or Louis Vuitton.

However, I am not likely to become one of those embittered old grumps who bellyache about everybody else in the room, or wait for public transit with a viciously sour expression on their faces. Nor will I assume that having reached this age (whatever age I am at that point), I am entitled to be an unpleasant demanding grey-haired prune.
I am far more likely to organize wheelchair obstacle races at the old-folks home, lead the conspiracy to start a moonshine operation in the basement, and smuggle in cartons of ciggies without nurse Ratchet finding out.
At fifty-three I am still young and vibrant -- albeit probably not by your standards -- and already becoming the rowdy disreputable relation you invite to events at which your maiden-aunt will NOT be present. "That's uncle Atboth; forcrapssakes keep him away from the born-again cousins, he's likely to teach them vulgar songs about Mary Magdalene or go off about the Levite, his concubine, and the men from the Tribe of of Benjamin". The piss and vinegar is leavened with wickedness, and likely to get more eloquent and fluent as I age. I'm brimming.
I'll dress nicely and act quiet at your wedding.
Just don't ask me to make any speeches.
Your maiden-aunt will blanch.
There will be gasps.
Even outrage.

And if your born-again cousins piss me off, I'll spike the punch bowl.


I'm looking forward to four decades hence, when I'm in my nineties.


Nurse Ratchet will be miserable, and life will be sheer loads of fun.


I think I'll smoke another bowl of "guaranteed wife repellent" now.


There shall not be any groping, happy or otherwise, this evening.




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