The Wedding Gig

The meaning of marriage, and what a strange meaning it can be for some people.

Men have a completely different notion than women when concerning life. They have a simple viewpoint. Sex, career, house, car, and kids. It’s this order that many men base their lives on even before they think about getting a wife. Women, on the other hand, have a different list, and each female on the entire planet has their own individual style to it.

However, the reasons to get married are the most complicated lists to make.

Let me tell you about it.

There was a couple, we’ll name them “Janet and Carl,” who were seeing each other for about two years. They had good careers where they relatively made the same amount of money between them. Janet and Carl were urbanites, so they were content with renting a spacious apartment rather than investing in a house. They also had a nice set of wheels to get them from place to place. They obviously had no bedroom problems, because in time Janet announced that she was pregnant.

Here was where things started to go wrong.

Surprised and enthusiastic by the news, Carl settled back to contemplate all that he would do as a father. On the other hand, Janet was less than thrilled. Normally, she would have left Carl and moved on to find the next boyfriend (she liked having them on a two-year rotation), but this had thrown an unexpected glitch into her plans. A baby was a lifelong commitment, one that Carl was more than eager to be a part of with Janet. Unfortunately, Janet didn’t share the same feelings.

So she did the only thing that she could do to fix the problem. She asked Carl to marry her.

You might be wondering why - I know I did when finding out the wedding plans. Well, here’s the clincher. Janet told me after the wedding (and it was a weird one) that she was only marrying Carl because she didn’t believe it proper for a child to go without a father in his/her life.

No, this marriage didn’t happen in the 1800's. This happened in the current century. Why she was living in an era before she had been born was beyond my comprehension, and maybe just an easy excuse for her to give.

Anyway, they got married. The outdoor ceremony was about fifteen minutes long with both of them simply reading off love poetry and having two witnesses sign a certificate. Afterwards, the combined families went to the newlywed’s apartment, dropped off their wedding gifts, and left to go home since Janet and Carl (Janet mostly) didn’t want any type of party to celebrate the nuptials. And that was that.

Almost.

It didn’t take long for the disagreements to begin. With a new baby in the apartment, money became strained with the necessities of buying diapers and baby formula while keeping up with the regular bills. Janet was also a shopaholic, an expensive shopaholic, with designer clothes taking up more space than baby toys in the closet.

One day, while going through another argument concerning their finances and how uncaring Janet seemed about them, Carl asked suddenly, “Do you love me?”

Janet’s response was, “Sure, why not.”

Sure? Why not? These are the kinds of answers you’re supposed to give when deciding to have Chinese take-out. Sure, order me the General Tso’s chicken and why not get me a veggie eggroll too. When it comes to matters of the heart, especially when it’s the man asking the question, you never give answers like this unless there’s soy sauce dribbling off your chin.

Nevertheless, Janet said them, right in the middle of the argument, with a shrug of her shoulders and a bored yawn.

Not surprisingly, Carl didn’t buy that answer. Angrily, he stormed out the apartment and disappeared for two days.

Janet used this time to initiate damage control. She called every person she knew and told them that Carl had run off with another woman. When her husband returned, he received a chilly reception from family and friends as Carl now had to convince everyone that he was innocent. Ironically, this meant that he didn’t have enough time to get on Janet’s case about their hurting finances.

They only stayed married for five more years.