When I was in my early-to-mid 20’s, pretty much everybody I knew got married. There was a new wedding every couple of months. This college buddy, that high school buddy, this other guy I knew from my church. Wham, wham, wham.
Then, somewhere around 30ish, everything settled down. Everybody was married and those who got divorced said something like “I’m never getting married again!” and, when they did get married again, it was in a small tasteful ceremony where they didn’t have to invite 300 people and do the Chicken Dance in front of them.
Well, we’re at the point where the new, fresh-faced, co-workers have started getting married. The absolute KID (21!) on the webdev/GUI team gets married next month and he’s keeping a countdown of the days but, he assures us, it’s only because his fiancée wakes him up every morning with a text with the countdown number. So we, the married guys on the team, do our best to explain to him what he has coming. We tell him stories about various fights we’ve gotten in and how we got ourselves out of them and then asked him if he noticed that all three of us, without co-ordinating or anything, began our story with something like “I don’t even remember what we were fighting about”. We give him advice on perspective, advice on when to smile and nod and when to say “wait, wait, hold on a minute there”, and advice on what to say when she asks “what are you thinking about?”
The “it’s like running a small non-profit” insight is one that every engaged person laughs at when s/he hears it the first time but then looks around at all of the old hands nodding and wondering why they’re not laughing too. Because, seriously, after the first couple of years when you figure out what condiments the other person prefers on their sandwich and reach the point where you know what to order for them if they ask you to stop somewhere on the way home, it’s like running a small business. Well, until kids show up, I imagine. Then it’s probably like running a small business on 3 hours of sleep every night while Frozen is playing on the television on a continuous loop.
In any case, one of the things we’re doing this weekend is going to a pre-wedding party where a bunch of couples are all going to go to one of those couples places where you make arts and crafts from a kit but they give you wine. (It’s not a “make a Bob Ross painting” place, it’s a “distress some wood then use it to make a sign that tells people to live, love, and wash their hands” kinda place.)
While there, I imagine that we will be giving advice to the happy couple. Go to bed mad, if you’re tired. You’ll feel better in the morning. Get synergy in your chores. (If you prefer to load the dishwasher because you load it CORRECTLY and they prefer to empty it because then they’re not touching germy plates, THAT’S THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME.) And, of course, the question of whether to leave the bathroom door open. AND HAMMER OUT WHICH SIDE OF THE BED YOU SLEEP ON NOW. Because you’re going to be sleeping on that side of the bed until you die.
And, at the end of it, we’ll have a nice little wood artifact for the house.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “complaint dept” by Life As Art. Used under a creative commons license.)
Hey, in thirty plus years we have switched sides of the bed maybe 3 or 4 times. Mostly it happens when we move or rearrange the furniture.Report
This is nuts.Report
I can totally see this if your side-of-bed preference is determined by it’s relationship, say, to the bedroom door or the bathroom or whatever. You move or you rearrange the room and suddenly sleeping on the other side of the bed makes sense.Report
“Baby, I appreciate that you want to be next to the bathroom, but that means that we’ll have to turn the bed 180 and put it against the other wall.”Report
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!Report
@fish True Story. (It was worth it to be next to the bathroom.)Report
Heh, what’s weird is that I can remember every bed placement in every room we’ve lived in, and on which side I slept. Of course, it was *always* the same side (the left, if you are at the foot facing the headboard).
Until July 2018. We switched when we got a new mattress… for no other reason than we are the devil-may-care-free-spirits who change bed sides… every 22-yrs or so.Report
The synergy thing is huge. For us, it was laundry. My Dad (who was taught by my mother) taught me how to do laundry. Likewise, K’s mother taught her how to do laundry. She didn’t like the way I did laundry (a cause for offense early in marriage) and I didn’t like the way she folded laundry–the solution was simple: She washes, I fold.Report
Early in our marriage, my wife once screamed at me, “I’m not eating pepperoni every time we get pizza.” I had to accept other toppings. Mostly. I learned to tell her I was watching a “Jason Movie” which was a signal that I was watching some weird shit she wouldn’t like, and she learned that I will never watch Monster In Law again.
Luckily, we both like British murder mysteries.Report
We get two pizzas. She has her pizza. I have mine. We ziploc up the leftovers and have lunch for the next few days at work.
Everybody’s happy.Report
See, this is a hidden benefit of having (lots) of children… we have to order sooo many pizza’s (usually at least 3 large) that we have 6 sides to work with. Sometimes I run out of special orders and trail off with… uh, um, just cheese, er, on that last half, I guess.
But never green peppers. Ever. It is written.Report