We're just monkeying around
There comes a point in every marriage when you realize the critical turn your life has taken and think, “Holy Mother of God! I married this person??!”
Sometimes those moments arrive after a series of events or circumstances, built up over years and years of cohabitation and sharing lives, toothbrushes and TV remote controls.
Kinda like how a decade’s worth of hair tangled in the shower drain will finally blow the plumbing apart and require $20,000 in repairs.
But sometimes an episode rears up and smacks you upside the head and provides a moment of sudden clarity so concise in its own right it eclipses everything else that has occurred up to that very point.
And so this column begins....
“Did I ever tell you I once attended a Monkees’ concert?”
Uh, I don’t think I heard that correctly.
“You did what?” I answered, praying that my brain had mistakenly heard my husband say “Monkees” rather than Metallica.
Yeah, Metallica sounds good.
But, alas, no.
“I saw the Monkees perform live,” he confirmed. As opposed to “I saw the Monkees perform dead.”
Because THAT would be a concert worth seeing.
And that was the very moment I began re-playing our marriage vows in my head, wondering if I’d had enough foresight to include a No-Monkees’ clause in there.
Hmmmm...honor, love and cherish (note that I left out obey, for a reason).
Nope, no Monkees’ clause.
DAMMIT!
“I think it was back in the ‘70’s,” my husband continued.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST STOP TALKING! I wanted to scream, but all functions to my brain had stopped, rendering me incapable of speech.
I had no idea that was even possible.
Nor did anyone who has ever met me. Go figure.
Skeletons in the closet are good things to have, don’t you think? Seriously. So I did what any honest-to-goodness Midwesterner would do.
I practiced the great art of avoidance.
“Oh, you meant to say Metallica, right?” I asked in a sing-song voice.
My husband frowned and formed his words carefully, like I was a deaf lip-reader.
Or Britney Spears.
“No, I said the MONK-EES,” he said very slowly.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I waved him off and laughed uncomfortably. I tried again, “I think you MEANT to say Metallica.”
He cocked his head to the side in puzzlement then opened his mouth. I put up a hand to stop him before he could utter another syllable.
“Before you say ‘Monkees’ one more time I think it best to let you know my brain isn’t capable of dealing with that piece of information right now,” I warned.
And then it hit me. “Oh, I know why you went to a Monkees’ concert in the ‘70’s,” I said with great relief. “You thought Marcia Brady would be there.”
My husband has admitted — on more than one occasion — that the great love of his young life was none other than the pretty, popular, “Ow, my nose!” Marcia Brady from “The Brady Bunch.”
And since we all know Marcia was desperately in love with the Monkees’ lead singer, Davy Jones, my husband must have been following the trail to his beloved, hoping she’d be there in the front row, mini-skirt and all.
That’s the only possible explanation.
So let’s put that tidbit of information back in the closet where it belongs.
That is, after all, how marriage is supposed to be.
At least the happy ones.
Sometimes those moments arrive after a series of events or circumstances, built up over years and years of cohabitation and sharing lives, toothbrushes and TV remote controls.
Kinda like how a decade’s worth of hair tangled in the shower drain will finally blow the plumbing apart and require $20,000 in repairs.
But sometimes an episode rears up and smacks you upside the head and provides a moment of sudden clarity so concise in its own right it eclipses everything else that has occurred up to that very point.
And so this column begins....
“Did I ever tell you I once attended a Monkees’ concert?”
Uh, I don’t think I heard that correctly.
“You did what?” I answered, praying that my brain had mistakenly heard my husband say “Monkees” rather than Metallica.
Yeah, Metallica sounds good.
But, alas, no.
“I saw the Monkees perform live,” he confirmed. As opposed to “I saw the Monkees perform dead.”
Because THAT would be a concert worth seeing.
And that was the very moment I began re-playing our marriage vows in my head, wondering if I’d had enough foresight to include a No-Monkees’ clause in there.
Hmmmm...honor, love and cherish (note that I left out obey, for a reason).
Nope, no Monkees’ clause.
DAMMIT!
“I think it was back in the ‘70’s,” my husband continued.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST STOP TALKING! I wanted to scream, but all functions to my brain had stopped, rendering me incapable of speech.
I had no idea that was even possible.
Nor did anyone who has ever met me. Go figure.
Skeletons in the closet are good things to have, don’t you think? Seriously. So I did what any honest-to-goodness Midwesterner would do.
I practiced the great art of avoidance.
“Oh, you meant to say Metallica, right?” I asked in a sing-song voice.
My husband frowned and formed his words carefully, like I was a deaf lip-reader.
Or Britney Spears.
“No, I said the MONK-EES,” he said very slowly.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I waved him off and laughed uncomfortably. I tried again, “I think you MEANT to say Metallica.”
He cocked his head to the side in puzzlement then opened his mouth. I put up a hand to stop him before he could utter another syllable.
“Before you say ‘Monkees’ one more time I think it best to let you know my brain isn’t capable of dealing with that piece of information right now,” I warned.
And then it hit me. “Oh, I know why you went to a Monkees’ concert in the ‘70’s,” I said with great relief. “You thought Marcia Brady would be there.”
My husband has admitted — on more than one occasion — that the great love of his young life was none other than the pretty, popular, “Ow, my nose!” Marcia Brady from “The Brady Bunch.”
And since we all know Marcia was desperately in love with the Monkees’ lead singer, Davy Jones, my husband must have been following the trail to his beloved, hoping she’d be there in the front row, mini-skirt and all.
That’s the only possible explanation.
So let’s put that tidbit of information back in the closet where it belongs.
That is, after all, how marriage is supposed to be.
At least the happy ones.
Apparently my Hubs was at Woodstock, where he jumped onto the stage and hugged Janis Joplin's legs.
ReplyDeleteBefore I was even BORN.
(lolol!)
LOL! There's a 9-year age difference between my hubby and me. Not much. But enough to freak him out when I say, "Hey, I was still in elementary school when you attended your first frat party."
ReplyDelete