Turn down the heat and let's talk compatibility
BURTON W. COLE, Editor
By Burton W. Cole
Mankind has beaten tons of nature’s obstacles over the centuries.
We’ve learned the secrets of flight, without which we wouldn’t have discovered turbulence.
We’ve designed interstate systems so amazingly complex that they can allow automobiles to travel up to three miles in an hour during the average rush hour.
We’ve figured out how to go shopping for all manner of useless and unnecessary objects without having to leave the comfort of our couches.
But despite all our combined brilliance, there are certain laws of nature that never shall be broken, most of which involve marriage.
It is an immutable law of nature, for example, that a cold person shall always marry a hot person, which will lead to The Thermostat Wars.
She cranks the thermostat up to approximately broil. He slips in 10 minutes later and turns it down to South Pole.
Marriage would be safer, but far less interesting, if couples underwent practical compatibility tests before engaging in matrimonial deadlock.
I don’t mean like the 85-question prenuptial worksheet my bride-to-be and I endured. That’s fine for determining if a couple can have philosophical discussions without throwing the fine china at each other. But there is little practical value.
Take question No. 3: “Children should have very strict discipline from parents.” I checked “Agree.” My betrothed and the experts that devised the bothersome test “disagreed.”
A decade and a couple of kids later, my bride groused that had the disciplinary skills of tree sap. Like I was supposed to know differently when my daughter said, “Coke and chocolate cake before bedtime help me sleep better.” It sounded logical. And tasted good.
Isn’t it odd that we choose as our constant companion, the person whom we cannot live without, a person who is so different from us in so many ways? But we have to. It’s an immutable law of nature.
Even something as simple — but immensely important — as pizza toppings can lead to marital contention.
The only thing that made my spouse happier than plain pepperoni pizza was double pepperoni.
I don’t care for pepperoni — not lonely pepperoni, anyway. I prefer “garbage pizza,” the kind with nearly every available topping.
My bride said she’d rather taste the pizza. I couldn’t figure out what there was to taste if you left off all the toppings.
Fortunately for marriages, many pizza shops fill half-and-half orders. But these couples can’t have kids, or very few. Pizza guys tend to hang up when you ask to divide the toppings seven ways.
Humorist Lewis Grizzard once wrote how the two-minute warning in football gave his wife fits. Fifteen minutes later, when there was still 30 seconds on the clock, she asked how this could be.
“It’s very simple,” Grizzard said. “It’s just like when we’re late for a dinner reservation and you say, ‘I’ll be ready in two minutes.’”
My wife had trouble with this concept when she assigned me a task and I said, “Just a minute.” She couldn’t understand that I began that chore immediately — the planning stage, anyway.
Sometimes it takes the careful guy days to contemplate the best possible way to approach a chore, like taking out the garbage or picking up one’s socks.
To skip proper planning is to risk the end of the universe — or miss the last two minutes of the football game.
Those are some of the practical topics that would be on my required marriage practical you-can’t-fight-nature compatibility test. There are more, of course. And I will get to them in two minutes.
Cozy up with Burt at news@falmouthoutlook.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.