My recent weekend frolics have been fruitful, if for no other reason than to deliver me two classic life moments, one a ‘you know you’re married when…’, the other a ‘you know you’re getting older when…’
Y’see, me and the dear lady wife went to buy a long overdue rug over the weekend. A trek of atypical domesticity, you’ll agree. But, my dear friend, the devil is in the details. As a bloke (you will remember from last issue’s column that I am, indeed, all man, despite a propensity to sob like a pansy girly-girly-girl-girl during emotional moments in films) my reckoning of the weekend was thus: go to sleep Friday night at time of choice, ideally whilst still drunk; wake up at time of choice, ideally both a) at some point in the afternoon and b) still drunk; ingest large portions of grease, preferably in meat form; jump in the car (not whilst still drunk) and drive three blocks over to the perfectly good rug store down the road; select rug that doesn’t induce vomiting, hand over a sum of money, where sum of money is equal-to-or-less-than weekly rent payment; wait until tomorrow, when energy has returned, to position rug under furniture; return to work on Monday, content.
Women have an entirely different way of approaching the world, and rug shopping it seems is no different. This is how the weekend actually panned out: drag alarmingly sober husband from the warm recesses of his Saturday morning bed at 7am; ingest a variety of fruit and ruffage; jump in the car and drive three… hundred miles to Sydney because they have a very specific rug store there (Cadrey’s, for those of you taking notes); scrutinise rugs for an interminable amount of time; select one, and hand over amount of money that extends my retirement age to 77; drive three hours home; immediately indulge in lifting heavy furniture and rearranging the house right-now-this-instance because, for some reason, this simply can not wait until the perfectly good Sunday that lay ahead of us; return to work on Monday, content.
You will notice the outcomes were both the same. So, in conclusion to this segment, You know you’re married when… you have vastly different ways of approaching a task, yet you go the way of the woman because a) it’s good for you, b) she’s usually right and c) she’s smarter than I am.
This segueways* neatly into the second portion of this issue’s rumination: You know you’re getting older when… you find yourself genuinely excited by the prospect of a new rug. Seeing that multicoloured bastard spreadeagled on the living room floor (like so many Allan Skos before it) first thing Sunday morning made me feel like a kid at Christmas. The Big Lebowski was right… it really does tie the room together (with any luck no one will mistake me for a broke eccentric and piss all over it. Fortunately I don’t know any nihilists, but I do know a lot of drunks. For those unfamiliar with The Big Lebowski, this parenthesis was a real waste of your time, wasn’t it? Some would argue it was a waste of everyone’s time, but let’s not extend this ludicrously long aside any more than we need to, eh?) If someone told me ten years ago that I would be genuinely excited at the prospect of buying a new rug, I would have pulled out my nine, shot the person in the toe and said ‘Nigga! You best step OFF with that gay shit!” (I grew up in the Bronx… And was black, apparently).
So why exactly does a rug excite me as much as a rum ‘n’ coke? It’s a symbol of domestic bliss, my friends, and one I hope is visited upon your fine household. Snug as a bug in a rug is an enduring phrase for reasons more than simply phonetic convenience. Which reminds me… the wife told me to call that exterminator. Gotta dash.
* yes, I said segueway. More on that next issue…
