Too Much Frosting

 

            Having been married once I decided that I would never do it again.  Marriage changes thing, changes people.  Change is highly overrated and I figured I was never going to find someone who would be the same ten years from now, well then what was the point of marriage.  It makes more sense to just be monogamous until the two of you outgrow one another, then you part amicably and look for someone new.  It would be perfect.

            I expressed this idea to my grandfather and he laughed, not in that gentle, knowing way grandparents on TV laugh, no his laugh was mocking and semi-hysterical!  “For someone who thinks he’s smart, you’re not too bright.”  The laughter continued for some time and every time I’d try to explain my reasoning the laughter would just get louder. 

I went home that night a little irritated.  How couldn’t he see the brilliance of my thinking, the amazing leap in logic I had made?  I assumed that it was most likely the brainwashing he had received over the course of forty years of marriage, or perhaps it was his age?  They did think different in the past, and perhaps something in his mental wiring just couldn’t see the brilliant notion I had laid before him.

I didn’t think of that night much past the time I went to sleep.  I continued on, blissfully exploring the singles scene, reveling in success and quietly forgetting about failure.  I was a man on the prowl, choosing and discarding women as my mood fit me (how they managed to dump me just as I was getting ready to do the same I’ll never know). 

It was about three months later when I went back for dinner with my grandparents.  While my grandmother was happily cooking up a storm in the kitchen, my grandfather poured me a scotch and water (his drink of choice, not mine). “Well boy, you still convinced marriage is a bad idea?”  He sat down and motioned for me to do the same.

“Well, yeah, I don’t think it’s all that big a deal.”

“What about kids?”

“I’m hoping to avoid having them as long as possible.”

“And when you want them?  What will you do then?  Mother’s don’t let go of their kids lightly.”

“I’ve thought about that, and I’m not sure what I’ll do there.” Taking a drink and letting the scotch roll around my mouth numbingly as I think. “I don’t know.  Maybe I just won’t have any.”

“Well that wouldn’t be so bad.  At least you wouldn’t be spreading your nonsense to another generation of men.” I almost spit out my drink as resumed his laugh, the same one from three months earlier, and slapped me on my knee.  I sputtered in response, trying to regain some composure, but he started talking again before I could get there.  “Now don’t try speaking for a bit and let me tell you why your thinking is so asinine.” He stood up and paced around the room as he spoke, a sure sign that he was serious. 

“What you’re doing is like eating cake in the road, sure it tastes good, but what the hell is the point?”  Cake in the road?  What the hell is he talking about?  “You’re out there in the road, enjoying yourself, pigging out on cake.  Its fun, but it’s kind of lonely since no one else is fool enough to be out there with you for long.  Sane people eat their cake at a table with some friends, where the odds of being hit by a car are awful damn slim.”

“Umm, okay grandpa…”

“You see boy, you’re filling up on cake by your self out there instead of some meat and vegetables in a house with family.  It tastes good but it doesn’t leave you with anything but a big gut and death by high speed bumper kissing!  Marriage gives you the meat and vegetable, it’s a main course.  It’s a hell of a lot more substantial and fulfilling in the end.  Sure you might end up eating asparagus casserole some days, but odds are you’ll get more steak as time goes by.  Do you see what I’m trying to say boy?” He put his hands on his hips, faced me and waited for my answer.

“I think so.  Get married and have kids or you’ll kill me.”

“Dinner boys!” came grandma’s call from the dinning room. “I fixed us some wonderful asparagus casserole.”

Grandpa looked to the dinning room, grimaced and turned back to me, “yeah, I guess that’ll do.  Now come and choke down dinner with me,” he smiled, slapped me on the back as I stood and whispered conspiratorially, “and I’ll buy you a steak tomorrow.”