… to Husband who cannot have a normal conversation

What was that all about!  This shouting and screaming and sneering and direct and indirect insults aimed at me is not amusing or cool. Many men, husband types and fathers, do what you do. Maybe it is their male menopause kicking in. Maybe it makes you middleaged  guys feel all manly and your wrinkled little penises get all hard and strong. I don’t know. I’m presuming. But man, it’s annoying. You, Husband, choose meal times to be nasty. Well I can understand why you swing into Hell-And-Damnation mode, because I have raised, avoiding you during the day and night, to a fine art form.

So I pretend to work at the computer till 3 am. Actually, as you have rightly accused me, I AM just fooling around on the Internet. I have told you so, but you think, I’m just being a smart-ass as usual and that I am actually doing some writing. But hey Idiot! There are no cheques coming in, so obviously, I’m not working. If I am, I’m doing it for free. And you know you hate that. But then again, I could be working for free in the hope of getting  a whole lotta moolah when someone decides to publish me for money. So maybe that’s what you’re thinking, during the long hours I spend backing you while you listen and watch depressing news on television.

This is how I avoid you during the day and night. I come to our bedroom much after 3 in the morning. Strange that you still ­ – after 32 years of marriage –  cannot call it our bedroom, to you it is always “the room” not even in capital letters, as if it is just a hole in a wall that you and I happen to sleep in. The room where you play around with crap that you think you are recycling, but crap still retains its essence – which is crap. You think you are cannibalizing all those electronic items for a later date, but you never use them again. You end up with several spare parts and tiny pieces of electronic junk which you carefully put away into old plastic pill boxes. Man, it’s still JUNK!  All those bits and pieces could have been given away to the junk collectors, but they lie broken and forgotten in recycled pill boxes in our store room.

So I come to the room after 3 in the morning; generally after finishing a few chores, it’s closer to 4 am. 

I wake up at 9. Pretend to do yoga till 10 am.  Deep breathing invariably ends up with deep sleeping in between easy asanas. I emerge at 10 am, have my breakfast, read the newspaper so I don’t have to see your face. Sit in the loo for a good half-hour doing interesting things like reading, or playing Sudoku. Then it’s chores time, cleaning, dusting, cooking depending on the day of the week, because I don’t do all every day, much to your annoyance.

I serve lunch at 2.15. I delay my appearance at the dining table by tidying the kitchen and wiping down the sink and counter. If I’m lucky, you are hungry and finish your lunch before I reach the table. Sometimes I’m hungry and I fiddle and fart in the kitchen after lunch. Those are the times when you really let ‘er rip.

By 2.30 pm you head for your afternoon nap happy that you have asserted your position as Boss in the household and I have been duly cut down to size. You don’t emerge until 5 pm. See? From midnight to 5 in the evening, I have had direct interaction with you for a total of 15 minutes. Yes, you make a valiant effort to start a blazing quarrel, by making provocative statements while I am fiddling around in the kitchen. Sometimes your hard work pays off and we are in the middle of a huge argument and you can bring out your vast arsenal of insults against me and my assorted family members. But those days are fewer now. I have grown cunning with age.

I have learned that if I hang on to the computer, I don’t have to have a conversation with you at all, if I just answer your rants as you listen to the news on television with an , Uh, huh, uh-huh, ah, aha. Hey, I’m good at faking interest and not just at tea time.

You go out for your walk at 6.30 and glorious peace reigns until 8 when you are back. I sometimes hear you ranting or insulting the neighbours who have not been quick enough to dive back into their houses before you saw them. You think you are being humourous when you insult them, but they all dislike you and humour you only because they know that when they are in trouble, they know you will help them, even if it means risking your own life. Because that’s the way you are. You are a good man, but a major pain in the ass.

My family (they love you by the way, they don’t know you detest them) tell me it is my fault. They tell me  you are not as sharp of tongue as I am. My wit is hurtful they say. Maybe they are right. Maybe you should have married a deaf and dumb woman like the deaf-mute down the road who has the hots for you. Only a deaf-mute would have the hots for you, because she cannot hear what you say. You insult her too, but you smile your nasty smile while doing it and the poor woman thinks you are just joshing.

But back to avoiding you. I get dinner on the table, cunningly I time it for 21.51 hours. I need just 8 minutes to finish eating dinner. I carry my dessert to the sofa on time to watch my TV programme at 22.00. You move to the computer, self righteously, because you are paying for the electricity and you damned well have earned the right to use the computer. You play Free Cell until midnight and then retire for the night. I get back to the Internet at midnight and fool around until 3 am. 

As marriages go, this is an awful situation, but unavoidable since you are highly uncomfortable with pleasant happy conversation. You are only happy watching the smile run away from my face, and to be fair, anyone else’s face. That’s the way you are.  As far as I am concerned, it’s an excellent system for my peace of mind. Like with a snarling dog, direct eye contact must be avoided at all costs.  I have reduced direct eye contact with you, Husband. to just 24 minutes in 24 hours. Not bad I say. Not bad at all.  Less hassling than taking the cleaver to you.

To the cliche "You are born alone, you die alone"

Someone was whining about how her friends had dumped her when she most needed their help and support. I fed her you, the old cliche about how we come into this world alone and depart alone. Then my old problem kicked in. It's terminal I'm thinking. This problem. I say something deep or stupid depending on the situation, and you have to agree, some so-called deep sayings are pretty stupid. But I digress. And I can digress because this is my blog, and if you don't like it you can just ____. No, no, come back. I didn't mean that. You are my only reader, so stay, okay?


I was thinking we are not alone when we come into this world. Adam, if the story of Creation is not a load of hoo-ha, arrived in this world with the hands of God himself around him. Ditto with Eve, though she was cloned from a rib of Adam, which is why I say, that story of creation? Maybe, just maybe, could be a load of hoo-ha. 


But take you and me. We had our moms holding us and pushing us out of their unmentionables. Honestly, whoever thought up how reproduction apparatus has to be set up in the animal kingdom, must've really hated females. One bad-ass all mighty misogynist. The point is, we are not alone when we are born. Even if we are born in a forest, we have our mothers cheering us along the birth path. Well my mother was swearing in Portuguese and when I gave birth to both my girls, I just bellowed. But my point? The baby is not alone at birth.


So it's settled then? You agree? We do not come into this world alone? 


Now about departing this earthly realm. If you depart alone, that's entirely due to poor planning on your part. Or if it happens when you are sitting on the crapper while on a business trip, just pure bad luck. Actually choices you make from the time you emerge from Mom to the time you're emerging from a freezer in the morgue, will determine whether you die surrounded by those you love who love you back. 


If you are a nasty, mean, petty, or creepy person, chances are you won't have too many people around you when you die. Unless along with your filthy mind you are filthy rich.


But if you've been an okay type warm, loving, taking people at face value, not trying to change the world too much, but going with the flow, you are so going to die of an overdose of carbon dioxide with the vast number of people sobbing around your death-bed.


And after you're dead, why should you care anyway? You're free. Finally. Wheee.