Marriage: A 50/50 (a rant on sunless tanning)

[Editor-in-Chief]

Marriage: A 50/50

By Aaron Bortz
Special to Toledo Free Press




On June 13th, 2007my wife and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. This week's humpDay Review reflects on one of the most valuable lessons I have learned about keeping a marriage strong: The 50/50 rule.
Happy Anniversary Puddin'!

I've decided to take up cigar smoking and I've decided where I'm going to do it: In the bathroom in the middle of our house and here's why. About 4 months ago, my wife took up sunless/boothless tanning and now I'm rebelling against it. This tanning concept is basically a lotion rubbed on the skin that tans anything and everything it touches. And it stinks…it stinks bad. When applied, this lotion of hers stinks up the bathroom, which creeps down the hallway, which creeps into the living room and pretty soon the entire house takes on a stench that out-stinks any other ordinary bathroom smell. But it doesn't stop there. She can't reach her back so I'm forced to help in this process, which causes me to touch it, which causes me to stink and now exactly half of the people in our family smell like it and the next thing I know, the palms of my hands are beautifully bronzed.

My palms are bronzed, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

So, I'm going to start smoking big fat stinky cigars in the bathroom. Look, if there's one thing I've learned in marriage it's this: share and share alike. It takes a 50/50 effort to make a marriage work and if she can use stinky tanning cream with her 50%, I can smoke cigars in the house with mine. You would think that in a modern era where we can produce things like space-aged polymers, robots and Ronco's Showtime Rotisserie Oven (for just 3 easy payments of 49.95), we could certainly find some type of scent neutralizer or flavored additive for tanning lotion. How is it we can send a man to the moon, a satellite to Mars and take pictures with cell phones yet no one has formulated a tanning cream that doesn't bring a grown man to his knees…a grown man with beautifully bronzed palms.

Wanna know something? I'm not even gonna tell her I'm doing it. I'm just going to wait till her next tanning session and when my services are called upon I'm gonna walk into the bathroom with the biggest Winston Churchill looking cigar this side of the Mississippi…maybe two. Depends on my mood. But hear me on this, be it one or two cigars, I'll come in with guns a blazin and cigars a smokin'. She's probably going to look at me and say something like “What the hell's that?” to which I'll reply “What? This? This here's a good old fashioned 50/50. You know, one of those things that helps keep a marriage strong. Now where's that tanning lotion? You're lookin' a little pale.”

I could go for more of a dramatic effect. I could walk in with the cigar unlit, that way, when she asks, “What the hell's that?” I can strike a kitchen match on the wall, slowly light my cigar in front of her and in my best ‘old scratchy cowboy' voice ask her if she's seen my flask of whiskey. Really, what goes better with a big ol' stinky cigar than a couple of slugs of whisky? Perhaps I'll start chewing tobacco and get one of those metal spittoons and keep it on the bathroom floor like in the old west. Maybe I'll start throwing peanut shells on the floor like some of those novelty bars. Hell, I just might do all three.

But you know women and their looks. She may be more committed to this tanning thing than I thought. With her tanning tunnel vision, she may be completely un-phased by the continuous clouds of pungent cigar smoke. The rhythmic ting of my tobacco juice as it finds its way to the metal spittoon time after time might be something she's willing to live with for a perfectly bronzed boosum. Heck, if I'm lucky, she just might think that the sweet smell of whiskey on my breath somehow enhances her overall tan. Now that there's a 50/50 I can live with.

Well, I don't know what's going to happen but I do know this. I'm just as committed to my cause as she is to hers. Remember, I didn't start this thing. But if she's stinking the house up and I just sit there, it looks like I don't care anymore and I'm not doing my part to keep our marriage strong. My smokin', drinkin' and spittin' is just me trying to keep the peace. It's the ultimate sacrifice in the name of love.

I guess in a perfect world, she would take up cigar smoking with me. God knows she needs something to help her kick that disgusting tanning habit.

To leave Aaron a note, give him advice or an idea to write about visit him
At http://www.myspace.com/humpdayreview

Source

[blondjuls]

Check out his myspace page...he's a dork

[John]

my space is for Pervs or teens

[Uvangel]

Some poeple need to get a life!! He must have nothing better to do with his time!!

[W8INLINE]

I guess when his kids star doing drugs he'll get to slice his vains.....that'll teach them.

[lewdyju]

50/50 puhleez!
If she is smart she'll pay the salon like she is supposed to do and he can have his stinky cigar ALONE.