Chapter 3. A Frank, Mature, Sensitive, And Caring Discussion Of Human Sexuality With Dirty Pictures

Special Advance Warning to Decent People

   I’m afraid that, in this chapter, we must talk about sex in a very explicit manner, because we want to expand the Frontiers of Human Understanding and also we want to sell as many books as possible to adolescent boys. This means we are going to have to use certain highly clinical sexual terms, such as “puberty” and “mollusk”, which can lead to arousal in some instances. So if you have a shred of decency in you, you’ll want to stop reading and go make fudge or something until this chapter is over. You’d better leave right now, because the heavy pornography starts almost immediately after these asterisks.
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   Still with us, eh? Ha Ha! Don’t feel ashamed. You’d be surprised at some of the readers we get in this chapter.
   Okay. Now that we’ve cleared out the religious fanatics, let’s take a look (so to speak) at ...

The Major Male Sexual Organs

   The major male sexual organs are the testaments, the nomads, the doubloons, the inner tubules, the vasal constrictors, the reversion unit, and of course the Main Organ, or “wiener.”
   Men are very protective of these organs. This is because Mother Nature decided, apparently as a prank, to place them on the outside of the male body, where they are most likely to get hit by baseballs, or punched by small children, or even—this makes me cringe, just thinking about it—attacked by crazed birds. And what is worse, Mother Nature made these organs extremely sensitive.
   You know how women are always talking about the Pain of Childbirth, and how awful it is, and how men will never really understand it? Well, we men don’t wish to make a big deal about this, but if you women really want to experience pain, you ought to try being male and taking a line drive to the privates. Yes sir. When this happens in a professional baseball game, and the player is down on the ground, writhing in agony, obviously clutching his private parts, the color commentator always says to the announcer: “Looks like he had the wind knocked out of him, Ted.” But the male spectators know better, and if you look around you’ll notice that they’re all hunched over protectively, thousands of them, as if a sudden epidemic of Bad Posture Disease has swept through the crowd.
   What this means is that, as they are growing up, males develop an attitude about their sexual organs very similar to the one that over-protective, doting parents have about their children. This is not a problem when the organs are young and innocent and basically dormant. But things change drastically when we reach puberty.
   Puberty generally occurs in males about two years late. By this I mean it occurs about two years after it occurs in females, which is somewhere around sixth grade. I remember at the end of my fifth-grade year, when we left for summer vacation, and the boys and girls were all just about even in the race for adulthood. But when we got back the next fall, the girls suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, were all a foot taller and had somehow acquired bosoms and God only knew what else. It was as though they had all attended Summer Bosom Camp.
   This gives the girls an unfair head start. They get two whole years in which to get used to having sexually advanced bodily parts, and the result is they develop a certain maturity about it, a coolness of judgment, a savoir faire, that they retain for the rest of their lives.
   Boys, meanwhile, are condemned to two years of wandering around the corridors of the junior high school, their eyes cruelly positioned by Mother Nature at just about bosom level, and consequently they develop this tremendous yearning to catch up. When puberty finally strikes them, this pent-up desire has become so powerful that they develop erections that last for an average of slightly over three years. You men out there know what I’m talking about. The main reason adolescent males carry school books is they need something to hold in front of them.
   Okay, then. To summarize what we have, in the typical healthy young male: We have a creature who tends to be highly indulgent toward his sexual organs, and we have organs that are semi-out-of-control much of the time, and almost always Ready to Party. Now let us contrast this with the sexual development of the typical female, starting with a discreet and sensitive examination of ...

The Major Female Sexual Organs

   I don’t know what the major female sexual organs are. I get extremely confused just looking at the diagrams. Frankly, I don’t think anyone really has a handle on the entire female reproductive system, because the organs are located inside the female body, where you can’t see them. The only way a woman can have even a vague idea of what’s going on in there is to have a gynecologist root around with primitive implements, and perhaps even call in an associate for consultation (“Hey Bob! Come in here! What do you make of this?!”).
   So in contrast to men, who are always touching themselves and giving themselves little nicknames, women develop an attitude of almost clinical detachment about their reproductive systems.
   Furthermore, where men’s organs seem to be carefree and impulsive, women’s are serious and hard-working, with a single-minded devotion to the idea of having a baby. No matter what the woman is doing on the outside—having a career, writing a novel, bowling—her organs are busy on the inside, gathering food for the baby, fixing up the baby’s room, etc. At the end of each month they sigh, throw everything away and start all over again, thus sending the woman the friendly biological reminder: “Okay. Fine. Go ahead and have your fun out there. Don’t mind us in here, slaving away, trying to ensure the very survival of the human race.”
   In summary, then, we see that, because of the location and nature of their respective organs, women tend to have a more serious, thoughtful, and responsible attitude toward relationships than men do. I realize this is an absurd generalization, but my feeling is that if we can’t have absurd generalizations, we might as well not even bother to write books.
   NOTICE: THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL IS OF A SEXUALLY EXPLICIT NATURE THAT MAY AROUSE PRURIENT INTERESTS IN READERS WHO HAVE INSUFFICIENT CONTROL OF THEIR URGES.

Answers to Common Sexual Questions

   Q. How long should sexual intercourse last?
   A. This is an area of some disagreement between the sexes. As a rule, women would like to devote as much time to foreplay and the sex act as men would like to devote to foreplay, the sex act, and building a garage. This tends to lead to dissatisfaction on the part of the woman, who is often just beginning to feel pleasantly sensuous when the man is off rooting around in the refrigerator to see if there’s any Jell-O left.
   Q. Well, isn’t there some sensitive and caring and loving technique that a couple can use to slow the man down?
   A. Yes. When the woman senses that the man is nearing climax, she can whisper: “The Internal Revenue Service called again today, but don’t worry, I hung up on them.”
   Q. I am a good-looking woman, as you can see from the enclosed glossy color photographs of me naked.
   A. Yes. Thank you.
   Q. Although I have an otherwise wonderful marriage, my husband seems to be losing interest in me sexually. It’s the little things: he hardly ever smiles at me; he often works late; and he comes home with as many as four naked women. So I thought, to rekindle the old flame, I’d surprise him, using a method suggested by Marabel Morgan in her book The Total Woman, namely greeting him at the door wearing only Saran Wrap. However, we were out of Saran Wrap, so I used Tupperware, which I feel is a better product anyway, but this unfortunately failed to produce the desired result, in the sense that when my husband saw me, he suffered some kind of seizure, and I had to drive him to the hospital while attempting to cover my private parts with two quart canisters and a Deviled Egg Transporter. My question is: Can we deduct this mileage on our income tax?
   A. That depends on your individual situation.
   Q. Listen, I, ummm, I have this kind of weird sexual hangup, which is that I, ummmm ... this is very embarrassing ...
   A. Go ahead! Say it! Don’t be ashamed! That’s what we’re here for! To help!
   Q. Okay, but I want to whisper it. (whisper whisper whisper)
   A. My God! Really?
   Q. Um, yes.
   A. The joint Chiefs of Staff?!
   Q. Well, yes.
   A. How do you get the hamsters into the accordion?

Necking Tips for Guys

   The big problem with necking is figuring out whether or not your date wants to Do It. On the Planet of the Ideal Women, your date would just come right out and tell you. She’d say: “What do you say we lie down on the couch and neck like crazy?” Or: “Although I like you as a friend, I frankly would not neck with you even if the alternative were death by leeches.”
   But here on the planet Earth, she won’t say anything. Sometimes this means she isn’t interested. But sometimes it doesn’t. Generally the way a guy finds out specifically what his date is thinking is at some point he lunges at her, lips puckered, and she responds by either puckering back, or quickly turning her head sideways, in which case the guy winds up sort of licking her hair, looking like a world-class dork. There is no face-saving way for a guy to get out of this situation, other than to have an instantaneously fatal seizure.
   Assuming your date is responsive, your next move is to attempt “French-kissing,” which is when you stick your tongue into her mouth, and she sticks her tongue into your mouth, and so there the two of you are, with your tongues in each other’s mouths. This is a really sexy thing to do, according to French people, although you should bear in mind that they also like to eat snails.
   Anyway, assuming your date seems to be responding positively to you, in the sense that she has not yet kneed you in the groin, and also assuming that you really and truly respect her as a human being and love her and plan to marry her, it’s time to move on to ...

Heavy Petting

   The big problem here is the bra strap. You cannot casually unhook a bra strap. The bra-strap industry sees to this. Scientists over at the Bra Strap Research Center in Amarillo, Texas, work night and day with volunteer males and lifelike female dummies coming up with newer and more complicated fastening devices, devices where the first hook actually re-hooks itself after you go on to the second one, such that nobody can get these bras off, especially not a lust-crazed male in a dark room. Many priceless jewelry collections are now protected solely by bra straps.
   If you get through the bra strap, your next challenge is the undergarments, which you will probably have to ask your date for assistance with, because they can be complex beyond human imagining, but I strongly advise that before the two of you tackle them, you should leave the restaurant.

Solid Advice about Condoms

   Guys, you should definitely use a condom. All major health authorities agree on this. The whole nation has become violently pro-condom, not just for guys having sex, but also for guys puttering around the yard, domestic animals most vegetables and all major war monuments. Better safe than sorry!

Where to Get Additional Explicit Helpful Information on Sex

   The best source of reliable information is romance novels, which you can find in better bookstores and supermarkets everywhere. You know the books I mean—the cover always is a picture of a handsome and of course brooding man embracing a woman with green eyes and a bosom that is clearly heaving, sometimes most of the way out of her dress. The title is always something fairly humid, like Loins of Passion.
   You sexually inexperienced couples should get hold of one of these books, because inside you will find a number of passages that are chock-full of explicit, down-to-earth, practical “straight talk” about the sexual act:
   “As Sabrina gazed upward at Baron LeGume, whose dark, brooding eyeballs were turgid with passion, she felt the tormented tenseness of his throbbing, pulsating malehood, and she knew, with a knowledge borne of knowing, that she could no longer hold back the surging waves of passion that washed over her, like waves of something, as his brooding throbbing pulsating highly engorged lips sought hers, not that she wanted to hold them back, we’re talking about the waves of passion here, although she knew that somehow, somewhere, perhaps deep within the shuddering throes of yearninghood that even now gripped the very core of her womanhood, if you get what we mean, that she must find a way, through the hazy mists of desire, to end this sentence, although she sensed somehow that ...”
   And so on. You young couples should study these helpful and realistic passages thoroughly, so you can use them for guidance when you are attempting sex (“You mean to tell me that’s the tormented tenseness of your malehood?”).

Chapter 4. Breaking Up Or Getting Engaged

   After a while, the sparkle tends to go out of a relationship. I don’t care how passionate you are. I don’t care if you’re like those couples in romantic movies who, in the scene where they finally realize they’re in love, lunge into each other’s arms and fall to the ground, wherever they are, even if it is a pasture, and roll around amongst the cow doots in a sexual frenzy. You don’t think those couples keep that kind of thing up, do you? Throughout life? Of course not. What would their clothes smell like?
   The point being, a relationship can survive on pure romance for only so long. Sooner or later, Mundane Reality starts to seep in, and you need to make a decision:
   * Do you break up with this person and look around for another one in hopes of once again experiencing the searing surge of unbridled passion, ideally in a carpeted environment? Or,
   * Do you accept that your relationship can move to a more mature stage, a stage based not so much upon impulse and romance and physical attraction as upon liking the same television shows? In short, do you get married?

How to Tell If You Are Compatible with Somebody

   One way to find out if another person is “right” for you is to spend a lot of time with this person, talking and sharing experiences, so that you really get to know him or her as a human being. This is what we call the old-fashioned, or “stupid” way. The modern way is to take a Compatibility Quiz.
   The Compatibility Quiz is a concept that was developed by top research scientists at Cosmopolitan magazine, a highly informative publication whose cover always has a picture of a glamorous woman, wearing an extremely low-cut outfit, whose breasts appear to be pointing straight up. In fact, they are pointing down: Cosmopolitan suspends these women by their feet from the ceiling. That is the price you have to pay, if you truly wish to be glamorous.
   Anyway, if you want to know whether your relationship will work out, you need to sit down and answer these questions:

Money

   Who do you feel should be the “breadwinner” in a family?
   A. The man.
   B. The woman.
   C. H. Ross Perot.

Children

   Which of the following statements best describes your feelings toward children?
   A. “Put that down this instant!”
   B. “I said put that down!”
   C. “Never put your finger in that part of the doggy!!”

Housework

   In a modern marriage, who do you feel should be responsible for the housework?
   A. Nobody.
   B. It should be divided up fairly and equally among the servants.
   C. Leona Helmsley.

Recreation

   Your idea of a pleasant romantic evening is:
   A. Sipping a glass of wine and watching a roaring fire.
   B. Drinking a few martinis and roaring at the fire.
   C. Drinking a bottle of gin and setting things on fire.

Sex

   The kind of sex you enjoy most is:
   A. With another person.
   B. With several other persons, but no animals.
   C. At least not invertebrates.
   D. Unless they are fairly tame.

Religion

   How would you describe your attitude toward religion?
   A. About your height, only thinner.
   B. I am not especially big on religion, but I have watched it on television.
   C. I am religious to the point of human sacrifice.

Family Crises

   Bill and Denise are a young married working couple with no children. One day they set out from Reno, Nevada, on foot at exactly 4:30 P.m. Bill walks three miles per hour and rests for ten minutes each hour, while Denise walks at exactly two miles per hour without stopping. After a couple of days they are both dead from scorpions. Which of the following statements most closely matches your feelings regarding this?
   A. It serves them right.
   B. I hear Reno is quite nice.
   C. I myself prefer a moister climate.

Current Events

   The capital of Vermont is:
   A. Where they keep the governor.
   B. Very cold.
   C. Probably in New England.
   HOW TO SCORE: Give yourself one point for each answer. No, what the heck, give yourself two points for each answer. Now add up your points and compare your total with the total for the person you’re trying to be compatible with. If both of your totals are numbers, odds are you two will hit it off pretty well. At least until you get married. Or maybe not. How the hell should I know?
   Your total: Your potential mate’s total:

Alternative Method for Stupid People

   Another excellent way to decide whether another person is compatible with you is to use astrology. The word “astrology” comes from the Greek or possibly Latin words “astro” and “ology,” so right away we can see that it is very scientific. In fact, astrology rests on a proven principle, namely that if you know the exact positions where the moon and the various planets were when a person was born, you can get this person to give you money. The way you do this is by making up random, semi-unintelligible pieces of advice, such as “attend to future considerations.”
   To use astrology for your own personal benefit, simply locate your astrological “sign” then look up your horoscope in any reputable newspaper and govern your entire life accordingly.

How to Break Up

   The ideal way to break up is the one featured in the famous best-selling book, Love Story, where the beautiful heroine, sensing that the relationship is getting maybe a little stale, contracts a fatal disease. In real life, however, it’s never that easy. You never have a really good excuse for breaking up with the other person, so you feel guilty, and you put off confronting the problem. I have a friend who found it so difficult to tell his girlfriend he no longer loved her that he just kept going along with the program, until finally, one day, they actually got married. They had a big wedding, and she was up there, in front of all her friends and family, thinking this was the happiest day of her life, and he was standing there in a rental tuxedo, thinking: “Should I tell her now? Nah. Better wait till after we cut the cake.” This kind of thing happens all the time.
   So if you’re going to break up, you have to overcome your guilt and break up now. Otherwise you’ll never find the person you really want, the person with whom you can achieve your goal of Lifelong Happiness. You should follow the example of famous former ravishing beauty Elizabeth Taylor, who sheds husbands like used Kleenex and has consequently achieved Lifelong Happiness dozens of times.
   Of course your major concern, in breaking up, is how to do it in such a way that the other person doesn’t get so upset that he or she stabs himself or herself. Or yourself. I recommend that you take the honest approach. Come right out with the truth. That is always best, in the end. To build up your courage, practice holding imaginary conversations with your lover, wherein you set forth, calmly and rationally, the reasons why you feel the breakup is necessary, then try to imagine, and sensitively respond to, the various objections your lover might have:
   YOU: Listen, I, um, I, uhh ...
   YOUR LOVER: Yes? Is there something you wish to tell me?
   YOU: Um.
   YOUR LOVER: Are you trying to tell me that, although you care for me deeply, and you will cherish always the times that we have had together, you really feel that we both need more space to grow and enrich our lives as separate individuals? For my sake as well as yours?
   YOU: Well.
   YOUR LOVER: Then perhaps it would be best if we broke up, with no hard feelings or remorse on either side.
   YOU: Okay by me.
   After you’ve mentally rehearsed this dialogue enough times, you simply go through it again, out loud, but this time in the presence of your lover. You’ll be surprised at how smoothly it goes:
   YOU: Listen, I, um, I, uhh ...
   YOUR LOVER: If you break up with me, I’m going to kill myself.
   YOU: I was thinking we should get married.
   There! See how easy that was? I am so very happy for the both of you! Onward to our “Important Prenuptial Chapter.”

Chapter 5. Important Prenuptial Chapter

   Should you and your spouse-to-be have a prenuptial agreement? We put this question to five of the country’s leading attorneys, and they sent us bills totalling $63,500. This should give you an idea of how important it is to try to avoid those pesky legal squabbles that could crop up down the road. So just in case, we have prepared the following Low-Cost But Fair Prenuptial Agreement for you. Of course, as is the case with any binding legal document, we strongly suggest that, before you sign it, you place it on a flat surface.

Low-Cost but Fair Prenuptial Agreement

   BE IT HEREBY AGREED that since (name of bride), hereinafter referred to as The Bride, and (name of groom), hereinafter known as The Groom, have decided that they love each other with a deep and undying passion, at least for the time being, and consequently want to get married, THEREFORE they do hereby agree that, in case later on for some reason God forbid they decide to get a divorce, they will both adhere to the following Deal:
   1. MONEY. If there is any money, it shall be divided up equally and fairly between The Bride’s and The Groom’s attorneys.
   2. DISHES. The Bride and The Groom shall equally divide up such dishes as have not been reduced to microscopic shards in the Traditional Pre-Divorce Violent Shrieking Kitchen Argument.
   3. WEDDING-GIFT FONDUE SETS STILL IN THE ORIGINAL UNOPENED BOXES. The Bride and The Groom shall each keep eight fondue sets, and the rest shall be given to charity.
   4. OTHER POSSESSIONS. The Bride shall get to keep whatever she picked out, including the living room, dining room, and bedroom furniture as well as any major appliances, carpets, lamps, paintings, etc. The Groom shall get to keep the Rolling Stones album Get Yer Ya Yas Out and the NHL Power Play table hockey game, including both pucks.
   5. FRIENDS. Friends shall be divided up by sex and distributed accordingly.
   6. RELATIVES. The Bride and The Groom shall each keep whatever relatives they had at the time of the original marriage. If there is any question about this, such as Uncle Bob, whom nobody can remember which family he belongs to, then he shall be allowed to visit either The Bride or The Groom, at his discretion, with the provision that he leaves after a couple of weeks.
   7. DOG. The dog shall be the property of whichever party was supportive of it and cleaned up after it the time it was throwing up what looked like raccoon parts on the bed.

Tips for the New Bride

   HOW TO GET ALONG WITH YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW: Your best bet is drugs.
   DEALING WITH YOUR HUSBAND’S OLD BUDDIES: Odds are your husband will have old buddies from college or reform school with whom he has shared many important Male Bonding Experiences such as fighting and burping and taking turns driving cars into the lobbies of major hotels.
   After you are married, you should not try to cut him off from these friends. They are a very important part of his life. They are able to discuss with him, as you cannot, a lot of important questions that guys are concerned about, such as: Who was pitching for the Yankees when Bill Mazeroski hit the bottom-of-the-ninth home run that won the 1960 World Series for the Pirates? Now you are continuing to read this paragraph, but believe me, your husband stopped at the end of the last sentence and is now staring at the ceiling and saying: “Whitey Ford? Nah. Louis Arroyo? Nah.” This is why he needs his buddies. To resolve questions like this.*
   So you should make a special effort to make your husband’s buddies feel welcome in your home. Invite them over for dinner. Invite them on your honeymoon. Don’t make a big scene if they leave beer cans in the aquarium. And above all, don’t force your husband to choose between them and you. I am not suggesting here that your husband would leave the woman he has pledged to spend the rest of his life with just so he could hang around with a bunch of guys talking sports and drinking beer. I am saying they would probably also order some pizza.
   * It was Ralph Terry.

Chapter 6. How To Have A Perfect Wedding No Matter What

   I am going to assume, in this chapter, that you’re getting married for the first time and consequently you want to do it in the most traditional and ludicrously elaborate way possible. Those of you who are getting married for the second or third time will probably want a low-key, informal wedding. I know this was the case when my wife and I married each other. It was the second wedding for both of us, and the most formal and organized part of it (I am being serious here) came when the wedding party played Capture the Flag.
   Similarly, some friends of mine named Hannah and Paddy had their second-time-around wedding in a bar, amidst a dense haze of cigarette smoke and much loud drinking, such that the actual ceremony, performed by a judge, was barely noticeable. The judge kept trying to get people’s attention by pounding on the bar and shouting, “Quiet down! We have to marry Hannah and Paddy!”
   But first-time marriers usually prefer to have a traditional wedding, defined by experts as “a wedding where the flowers alone cost more than Versailles.” One advantage of this kind of wedding is that, over the years, the various responsibilities have clearly been divided up between the bride’s family and the groom’s family:
   RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE BRIDE’S FAMILY: The announcement; the church; the invitations; the clergyman; the rehearsal; the bridesmaids’ luncheon; the flowers; the dresses; the reception; the food; the liquor; the photographer; the limousines; lodging and transportation for out-of-town guests; gratuities; the honeymoon; the national defense; a nice thoughtful present for the newlyweds such as a house. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE GROOM’S FAMILY: Not throwing up on the other guests.
   Of course there is one other major responsibility of the groom, which is to buy the engagement ring. Guys, I know it can be intimidating to walk into a jewelry store and try to handle a slick salesman, but you’ll do fine if you know a few basic technical facts about diamonds.

Diamond Formation

   Millions of years ago, lumps of carbon fell down on the ground and got covered up by dirt and mountains, after which they were subjected to intense pressure by lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association. Over the years, these lumps were buried deeper and deeper beneath the Earth’s surface, so that today we don’t even know where the hell they are. Nor care.
   Meanwhile, shopping centers began to form, and inevitably they developed jewelry stores. This is where we stand today.

How Diamonds Are Measured

   The standard unit of measurement for diamonds is called the “carat,” which basically measures how much you love your fiancee. A guy who is only mildly attracted to his fiancee will buy her a ring with only a few carats, whereas a guy who really loves his fiancee will buy her a stone so large that she can never again swim in ponds for fear she will become embedded up to her shoulders in bottom muck.
   That takes care of the groom’s responsibilities; everything else is up to you brides-to-be. You’re going to be very, very busy planning your wedding, because naturally you want everything to be perfect. Remember at all times, brides-to-be, this is your own very special day, and it damned well better be perfect or you are going to kill yourself with a cyanide capsule, which it is the responsibility of the maid or matron of honor to provide.
   Actually, planning a wedding is not all that difficult, provided you do almost nothing else for the better part of a year. Naturally, this will be a very busy and exciting time for you. But as you go through it, you must make sure, amid all the excitement and hustle and bustle, that you don’t lose sight of the whole point of the wedding—its deeper meaning and the central reason for its entire existence. Your gown.

Your Wedding Gown

   Listen up, brides. You get only one shot in your life at a real wedding gown, and you better not blow it. Because a wedding gown is more than just a dress. It’s a dress that costs a whole ton of money. It’s a dress that you’ll cherish for several decades in a box in a remote closet, perhaps to be taken out one day by your daughter when she’s looking for (sniff) a wedding gown of her own. She’ll wisely reject yours, of course, because by that time it will have served as the home environment for 60,000 generations of insects. The last thing she wants, when she’s up at the altar on her own Very Special Day, is for a millipede to come strolling out of her bodice.
   Nevertheless you must have a wonderful gown. This is where you need the expert help of a qualified bridal couturier, who can answer your technical questions:
   YOU: What kinds of gowns do you have for under $2,000?
   COUTURIER: Well, we have this one right here.
   YOU: This is a group of used Handi-Wipes sewn together.
   COUTURIER: Yes. By preschool children.
   With this kind of guidance, you’ll be able to select a truly memorable gown, one that will cause your parents to remark in admiration: “How much? That’s more than we spent on our first house!” If they don’t make this remark, your gown is not memorable enough, and you should take it right back to the couturier to have some more pearls glued on.
   After you’ve selected your gown, it’s time to get on with planning the rest of the wedding. This task will be easier if you use this convenient Wedding Planner Checklist:

Bride’s Wedding Planner Checklist

Six Months before the Wedding

   This is the time to choose your wedding site. It should be extremely traditional. Ideally, you want St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London, England. This is where Princess Diana got married to Prince Charles in a ceremony that lasted longer than a number of major wars. Also it required more horses. This is the kind of memorable wedding you definitely want to shoot for.
   If St. Paul’s is not available, look for a large traditional religious building, such as a church or synagogue, closer to home. In many cases, these buildings are affiliated with major religions, which may require that you hold specific religious beliefs before you can get married there. This is a good thing to check out beforehand, by calling up the person in charge:
   YOU: Hi. I was thinking of getting married in your church or synagogue, and I was wondering if I had to hold any specific religious views.
   RELIGIOUS PERSON: Why yes, you do. YOU: How many?
   RELIGIOUS PERSON: Let’s see, here ... five, six ... looks like eight in all.
   YOU: Fine, fine. Could you please mail me a set?
   If the building is really right for you, with adequate parking and every thing, you should go ahead and agree to hold the beliefs, even if they involve animal sacrifice. This is your wedding, after all.
   The other major things that must be accomplished six months before the wedding are:
   * The bride should select a caterer and a nice country club for the reception, and her parents should withdraw their life’s savings so they can put down a deposit.
   * The mother of the bride and the mother of the groom, if they do not already know each other, should have a luncheon wherein they get along about as well as Iran gets along with Iraq.

Five Months before the Wedding

   Now is the time to select your bridesmaids. This is a very large honor, which you bestow only upon people who meet the following criteria:
   1. They should be female.
   2. They should be willing to wear bridesmaids’ dresses.
   This second criterion is the most important, because the whole point of the bridesmaid’s dress is to render the person wearing it so profoundly unattractive that she cannot possibly outshine you, the bride. In fact, one of the really fun things a bride gets to do is go to the bridal salon with her mother, and the two of them get drunk and howl with laughter as they consider various comical outfits that they might encase the bridesmaids in. Some of them go so far as to select actual clown suits, but most prefer the traditional look, which is:
   * Long frilly dresses in bright pastel colors reminiscent of Bazooka bubble gum or some experimental and ultimately unsuccessful ice cream flavor with a name like “Pumpkin Surprise.”
   * “Puffed” sleeves that make any woman who is larger than Audrey Hepburn look like a Green Bay Packer.
   * Large “fun” floppy hats that obscure the bridesmaid’s face so thoroughly that you could use men if you really had to.
   You need not feel restricted to this look, however. This is your Very Special Day, and you can make the bridesmaids wear anything you want. Veils, fur stoles, whalebone corsets, hats with waxed fruit, kneepads, anything. Remember: they have to pay for it.

Four Months before the Wedding

   This is a good time to select a silver pattern and a groom. (see Chapter 1, “How to Find Somebody to Go on Dates With”). In fact, your smart modern bride will often select several grooms, so as to guarantee that in case one or two of them get “cold feet,” she’ll still be able to have her Very Special Day.
   You must be much more careful in selecting your silver pattern. It should have a name similar to the ones developers give to shoddy new apartment complexes, such as “Coventry Downe Manor”; and each place setting should consist of a regular fork, a dinner fork, a breakfast fork, a snack fork, a soup fork, a holiday fork, an emergency fork, a Care Bear fork, a Pez dispenser, and the equivalent knives, spoons, ladles, scone handlers, beet prongs, tuffet churners, prawn smelters, and clam goaders. Remember: Your silver is your first major family heirloom, to be cherished and stored in the same closet where you cherish your wedding dress until such time as one of you files for divorce.

Three Months before the Wedding

   This is the time for the formal announcement of your engagement to appear in your local newspaper. Your local newspaper should have a name like The Morning, Afternoon & Evening Chronic Spokesperson-Fabricator, and the wording of the announcement should be as follows:
   “(Your parents’ names) are extremely relieved to announce the engagement of (your name) to (your fiance’s name), who is not really good enough, son of (your fiance’s parents’ names), who are quite frankly dreadful, but (your parents’ names) will settle for just about anything at this point because suitors are not exactly knocking down (your name)’s door despite all the money (your parents’ names) spent on her teeth. An elaborate wedding is planned.”
   This is also when you send out your invitations. You are naturally going to want to invite me and a number of my friends, because we are a lot of fun at any kind of affair where there is free liquor, plus if the band is really lame, which it will be (see page 50), we are not afraid to express our displeasure by hurling segments of the prime rib entree, which by the way may be served buffet-style for informal afternoon weddings. Others you might consider inviting include your family and any member of the groom’s family who can produce a receipt proving he or she has purchased at least one full place setting.
   The invitation should be on a little card, which you mail to your invitees along with a little matching R.S.V.P. card and a return envelope that says POSTAL SERVICE WILL NOT DELIVER WITHOUT STAMP.

Two Months before the Wedding

   This is when the mother of the groom should go out and buy a dress to wear to the wedding that is fancy enough so that the mother of the bride will be convinced that the groom’s mother is trying to upstage the bride, and consequently the bride’s mother will think about virtually nothing else for the rest of her life.
   This is also when you should hire a band. It makes no difference which one. All wedding bands are the same. They’re all cloned from living cells that were taken from the original wedding band, “Victor Esplanade and his Sounds of Compunction,” and preserved in a saline solution in Secaucus, New jersey (which, incidentally, is also the home of the first native American Formica trees). They’ll show up in stained tuxedos, and no matter what kind of music you ask them to play, they’ll play it in such a way that it sounds like “New York, New York.” Really. If you feel like dancing to some rock ‘n’ roll, and you ask them if they maybe know “Honky Tonk Woman,” they’ll say, “Oh sure, we know that one,” and they’ll play “New York, New York.” They can’t help it. We’re talking genetics.

One Month before the Wedding

   Now is the time for you and the groom to get your blood tests. If your groom’s blood fails, get another groom. If your blood fails, get some new blood. We are much too far into the planning process to turn back now.
   By now you should also have lined up a photographer. You’ll want to have lots of photographs of your wedding to show to your family and friends, who will have been unable to see the actual ceremony because the photographer was always in the way.
   Often you can save money by having your pictures taken by a friend or relative who is familiar with photography in the sense of owning a camera and knowing where a Fotomat is. I have some good friends named Rob and Helene who took this approach, and the pictures came out really swell except that for some technical reason there is no light in any of them. just these vaguely humanoid shapes. We all love to get these pictures out and look at them. “Look!” we say. “There’s Helene! Or Rob! Or the cake!

Two Weeks before the Wedding

   By now your advance wedding gifts should have started to arrive, including at least 14 attractive and functional fondue sets. Also by this time the bride should start to notice a scratchy feeling at the back of her throat, indicating that she is just starting to come down with a case of Mongolian Death Flu.

One Week before the Wedding

   This is where the groom starts to get actively involved in the wedding preparations, by having a “bachelor’s party” where he gets together with his “chums” for one last “fling” and wakes up several days later in an unexplored region of New Zealand. Meanwhile you, the bride, are bustling about, looking after the hundreds of last-minute details, having the time of your life despite the intermittent paralysis in your right leg.
   The highlight of this week, of course, is the Rehearsal Dinner, when the wedding principals, especially the immediate families, take time out from the hectic pace of preparations to share in an evening of warmth and conviviality, culminating when the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom go after each other with dessert forks.

The Wedding Day

   This is it! The biggest day of your life, and there’s no way that any dumb old 108-degree fever is going to put a damper on it!
   A good idea is to put your wedding gown on early, so the sweat stains can expand from your armpit areas and cover the entire gown, and thus be less noticeable. And now it’s on to the wedding site!
   As the guests arrive, the ushers (What do you mean, you forgot the ushers?! Get some!!) should ask the guests whether they want smoking or non-smoking, and seat them accordingly (except the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom, who should be seated in separate states). Then, at the appointed time, the organist should start playing a traditional song, such as “Here Comes the Bride” or “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wedding procession should come down the aisle, in the following order:
   1. A cute little nephew, who will carry the ring and announce, at the most dramatic part of the ceremony, that he has to make poopy. If you have no cute little nephew, rent one.
   2. The groom (if available).
   3. The bridesmaids, walking sideways to minimize the risk that they will injure a member of the audience in the eye with their puffed shoulders.
   4. You, the bride, the Center of Everything, smiling radiantly, your eyes sparkling like the most beautiful stars in the sky until, as you reach the altar, they swell shut in reaction to the antibiotics.
   From that point on, it Will all be a happy blur to you—the ceremony, the reception, dancing with your new husband to your Special Song (“New York, New York”). Enjoy it all, for you’ll never have a wedding like this again, even if you do recover fully.
   But the best part of all will come later, on your Wedding Night, just the two of you, alone at last—you in your filmy, lacy, highly provocative peignoir, and your groom on his back in the shower snoring and dribbling saliva on his rental tuxedo. My advice to you is: relax, have a glass of wine, and check his pulse every 15 minutes. Don’t be alarmed if he has none. This is normal, for grooms.

Pranks

   It is the responsibility of the best man and the ushers to play fun and comical pranks on the Happy Couple, such as—this is a good one!—just before they come rushing out of the reception, ready to leave on their honeymoon, you take their car and—get this, guys!—you sell it and keep the money. Ha ha! The Happy Couple will sure talk about that for a number of years!

The Honeymoon

   Most couples prefer to take their honeymoons away from the familiar and the ordinary, to go to an exotic, different, and foreign place, such as Epcot Center. I am not kidding here. A lot of couples really do honeymoon at Disney World. Of course they don’t admit this. They say they’re “honeymooning in Florida,” because they don’t want people to know that the highlight of the whole wild lustful romantic adventure was shaking hands with Goofy.
   Of course there are plenty of other possibilities for your honeymoon. Your friendly travel agent will give you mounds of brochures from all kinds of resorts desperate to obtain your honeymoon dollar.

Thank-You Notes

   Thank-you notes are your last major responsibility as a bride, and the rules of etiquette require that you try to get them all done before the marriage legally dissolves.
   The proper wording depends on whether or not you remember what the people gave you. If you do remember, your note should say specific nice things about the gift:
   Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sternum:
   Thank you ever so much for the very thoughtful fondue set. Mark and I feel that, of all the fondue sets we received, the one you gave us is definitely one of the nicer ones, in that particular color.
   Sincerely, Elaine and Mark
   If you don’t remember what gift they gave you, you’ll have to compensate by sounding very grateful for it:
   Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sternum:
   We just don’t know how we can ever thank you for the extremely wonderful gift you gave us. It has become the focal point of our entire lives! We think about it all the time. We are seriously thinking about quitting our jobs and forming a religious cult that just sits around all day worshipping this gift.
   With Extreme Sincerity, Elaine and Mark

Chapter 7. Newlywed Finances

Household Money Management

   It Is sad but true that money causes a great many unnecessarily fatal squabbles among newlyweds. Very often this is because of a difference in priorities. For example, you want to buy food, while your spouse wants to buy a thoroughbred racehorse. It’s important, in these situations, for both of you to be willing to sit down together and try to achieve a work able compromise. In this case, you could buy a thoroughbred racehorse and eat it.
   Often, however, the solutions are not that simple. This is why it’s so important that right now, while you’re just starting out, you draw up a realistic household budget. I can help you here. I have lived in a realistic household for many years, and I would say, based on experience, that your typical weekly expenses should run pretty close to the following:
   REALISTIC WEEKLY HOUSEHOLD BUDGET FOR TWO PEOPLE
   Food that you buy and eventually eat $30.00
   Food that you buy and store in the back of the refrigerator until you have to throw it out because it looks like the thing that burst out of that unfortunate man’s chest and started eating the spaceship crew in the movie Alien 55.00
   Pennies that you get as change and put in a jar, intending to someday put them in those wrappers and take them to the bank, when in fact you will die well before you ever get around to this 117.48
   Rent, clothing, car payments, insurance, gas, electricity, telephone, magazines 829.12
   Miscellaneous 2,747.61
   As you can see, there are a lot of expenses associated with running a household, and to meet them, you will need Financial Discipline. Each week, when you get your paychecks, you must set aside $3,779.21 right off the bat, to cover your weekly household budget. If your combined weekly paychecks total less than this amount, perhaps you should go back and marry a rich person (see Chapter 1). Your other option is ...

Credit Cards

   Credit cards are an excellent source of money. The way they work is, people you don’t even know mail them to you, and then stores, for some reason, let you use them to actually buy things. (No, I can’t figure it out either!)
   The thing is, you have to be responsible about how you use your credit cards. You can’t just rush out and charge every single item in the store. Think ahead! How would you fit it all into your car?
   So I strongly recommend that you be cautious with credit, following the wise Borrowing Rule of Thumb employed by the federal government, which is: “Never borrow any amount of money larger than you can comfortably pronounce.”

Your Checking Account

   This is another potential source of money, although it’s usually impossible to tell how much money is in it. The important thing is to try to keep your checkbook “balanced.” Here’s how.
   1. Each month the bank will send you an envelope containing a bunch of used checks, which, for tax purposes, you should place in a two-ply grocery bag and eventually misplace. Also in the envelope will be:
   * A little note entitled “TO OUR CUSTOMERS!” that will feature a cheerful and totally unintelligible message like this: “Good News! First Fiduciary Commonwealth National Savings & Loan & Bank & Trust is now offering 3.439087654970 Growth Bonds of Maturity yielding 2.694968382857%
   Compound Annualized Rate of Secretion!” You should try to save this note, for tax purposes.
   * A piece of paper covered with numbers (your “statement”).
   2. Okay. Now open up your checkbook and take a look at the kind of checks you have. If you have the kind with little nature scenes printed on them, or, God help us, little “Ziggy” cartoons, you’re much too stupid to balance your own checking account, and you should definitely go back and marry a rich person (see Chapter 1).
   3. Now examine your check register (the part of your checkbook that you sometimes write on).
   4. Now compare and see if any recognizable numbers on the “register” are the same as any numbers the bank has printed on the “statement.” If you find any, you should put a little happy face next to them.
   5. If your total number of happy faces is five or more, then your account is what professional accountants call “in balance,” and you can go on ahead and watch TV. If you score lower than five, you should get on the phone immediately and explain to your bank that they have made some kind of error.

Your Home: Buying vs. Renting

   Aside from Madonna and Sean Penn, most newlyweds rent their first home. This can actually be a pleasant experience, as you discover the Fun Side of apartment life: getting to know your new neighbors; listening to what kind of music your new neighbors like to play very early in the morning on their 150,000-watt sound system; having your new neighbors’ legs come through your ceiling when water from their leaking toilet rots their floor, etc.
   But sooner or later, despite this recurring joy of these communal experiences, you’re going to want to have a place of your very own. Step one is to figure out how expensive a house you can afford. This depends on your combined annual incomes, as is shown by the following chart:
   YOUR COMBINED ANNUAL INCOME PRICE OF HOME YOU CAN AFFORD Up to $20,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $20,000-$40,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $40,000-$80,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $80,000-$100,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford.
   But don’t despair, young couples! You can still realize the dream of owning a home of your own, provided you’re willing to do what generations of newlyweds have done before you: roll up your sleeves, do the hard work, and make the tough sacrifices involved in nagging your parents for a down payment. They probably have some money left, even after your wedding, and your job is to whine and wheedle and look pathetic until they give it to you. Make sure you leave them something for food:
   COST OF YOUR NEW HOME AMOUNT YOUR PARENTS SHOULD HAVE LEFT FOR FOOD AFTER LENDING YOU THE DOWN PAYMENT
   Up to $50,000 $150
   $50,000-$100,000 $75
   Over $100,000 Various canned goods.

Chapter 8. How To Argue Like A Veteran Married Couple

   Most young couples begin married life knowing very little about how to argue with each other, and are forced to learn through trial and error. Sadly, some of them never do learn, a good example being that couple on “The Waltons” who never fought about anything, and consequently wound up with three or four hundred children.
   There is no need for this kind of tragedy. We veteran married couples have, over the years, especially on long car trips, developed certain time-tested techniques that even an inexperienced person can use to turn any issue, no matter how minor, into the kind of vicious, drawn-out argument where you both spend a lot of time deliberately going through doors you don’t really need to go through, just so you can slam them viciously.
   When you get involved in marital arguing, the role model you want to bear in mind is World War I, which got started when some obscure nobleperson, Archduke Somebody, got assassinated way the hell over in the Balkans, and the next thing you know people in places as far away as Cheyenne, Wyoming, were rushing off to war. These were people who wouldn’t have known a Balkan if they woke up in bed with one, but they were willing to get shot at because of what happened there. It’s the same with a good marriage argument. If you really do it right, you should reach the point where neither of you has the vaguest recollection what the original disagreement was, but both of you are willing to get divorced over it. This is the kind of veteran marital relationship you young couples can develop, if you follow these proven techniques.
   The most important technique is: Always be on the lookout for conversational openings that can lead to arguments! To illustrate this, let’s look at a typical marital conversation:
   MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?
   JOHN: Why of course, dear. I’m sorry.
   Pretty pathetic, right, married couples? Mary has created the perfect opening for a good argument, and John has totally dropped the ball, by admitting he was wrong. Never admit you’re wrong, young married persons!
   Now you’re saying, “But what if John’s socks are right there, on the coffee table? How can he argue about that?”
   The answer is: He can’t. So what he has to do is, he has to somehow get the argument, or at least his end of it, focused on a completely different topic, ideally a strident accusation that he has dredged up out of his memory and that is totally unrelated to the issue at hand. This is very important, young married persons: You must always maintain a supply of retaliative, irrelevant accusations in your mind, so that you can dredge them up when you need them.
   Let’s say, in this case, that John once thought Mary was flirting with her old flame Bill at a party. This is a good thing to accuse her of in the current argument, as it is totally unrelated to the coffee table. However, John must be careful how he brings it up; if he does it too abruptly, Mary could become confused, and the argument could end right there:
   MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?
   JOHN: Oh yeah? Well what about your old flame, Bill?
   MARY (confused): Huh?
   So what John needs to do—this is the essential skill of marital arguing—is to come up with a smooth way to get from Mary’s topic to his topic. This technique is called a “segue,” (pronounced “segue”), and if you do it right, it will usually lead to a whole new series of mutant topics you can argue about. Let’s see how it works:
   MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?
   JOHN: Why do you always do that?
   MARY: Always do what?
   JOHN: Always look for things to criticize.
   MARY: I don’t always look for things to criticize. I just don’t like finding your damn ...
   JOHN: Fine. Great. Curse at me. I didn’t see you cursing at Bill, at the Johnsons’ party.
   MARY: What is that supposed to mean?
   JOHN: Oh, come on. You were flirting with him.
   MARY: I was flirting? And I suppose you weren’t all over Jennifer?
   JOHN: I don’t see how you could have known what I was doing, after all you had to drink.
   See how effectively this veteran married couple handled the situation? In just a few quick sentences, they have gone from a seemingly silly topic, socks, to a whole treasure trove of issues that they can debate and dredge up again for years to come. I’m not saying you young couples will get this kind of results your first time out of the gate, but with a little practice, you’ll get the hang of it, and it can lead to the discovery of a whole new facet of your relationship (see Chapter 11, “How to Put New Life into Your Marriage or Else Get a Divorce”)

Chapter 9. Children: Big Mistake, Or Bad Idea?

   In this chapter, we’re going to talk about how children affect your marriage. We’re not going to talk about how you actually produce the children in the first place. We covered that topic thoroughly in an earlier book, Babies and Other Hazards of Sex, which explores the whole area of childbirth in great detail and reaches the following scientific breakthrough conclusions:
   1. It is very painful. (If you’d like additional facts on this topic, you can read the book, although it doesn’t contain any.)
   For now, however, we’re going to talk about how your married life will change after you have children, so that you’ll be able to carefully and rationally weigh the pros and cons of parenthood, then barge right ahead and have children without any understanding of what you’re really getting into, just like everybody else.

What It Really Means to Be a Parent

   What it really means to be a parent—note this carefully, because it’s the essence of the whole thing—iS: YOU Will spend an enormous portion of your time lurking outside public-toilet stalls.
   For reasons that modern medical science has been unable to explain, children almost never have to go to the bathroom when they are within eight or nine miles of their own home toilets. It does no good to try to make them. Tell a child to go to the bathroom before you leave home, and the child will insist that not only does he or she not have to go now, but he or she will probably never have to go to the bathroom ever again.
   And of course when you get where you’re going, let’s say a restaurant, the child will wait until your entrees are about to emerge from the kitchen, then announce that he or she has to go. Children are incredibly sensitive to approaching entrees.
   So you will take the child to the bathroom, and, if it is an especially loath some bathroom, a bathroom that has clearly not been cleaned since the fall of Rome, a bathroom where the floor is littered with the skeletons of Board of Health employees who died attempting to inspect it, if it is this kind of bathroom, the child will immediately announce that he or she has to do Number Two.
   And of course you must stay there with the child. The child will want you to stand right outside the toilet stall, while the child goes in there, and ... and nobody really knows. It’s a real mystery, what young children do in public-toilet stalls. Whatever it is, it takes them longer than it took you, the parents, to produce them in the first place.
   What I hate about this is that restaurant men’s rooms are often fairly small and intimate places, and while I’m standing there, waiting for my son, strangers are constantly coming in to pee, and there I am, inches away from them, lurking there with no apparent purpose, like some kind of sex pervert who likes being in disgusting men’s rooms. So, to show that this is not the case, I try to keep a conversation going with my son. Except the only thing I can think of to talk to him about is how the old Number Two is going. I mean, you’d feel like an idiot in that situation, talking about the Strategic Defense Initiative. So we have these ludicrous exchanges:
   ME (brightly): So! Robert! How’s it going in there?!
   ROBERT (irritated): You just asked me that.
   ME (grinning like a madman at the peeing stranger so as to reassure him that everything is okay): Ha ha!
   Eventually, the child will emerge from the stall, when he or she is absolutely sure that the entrees are stone frozen cold. The child doesn’t care about the food, because children don’t go to restaurants to eat. They go to restaurants to go to the bathroom and play loud shrieking games under the table, so that you, the parents, are constantly ducking your heads under and hissing, “Stop that!” like some deranged species of duck. The child never actually touches the food, which is why many modern restaurants are saving money by serving reusable children’s entrees made entirely out of plastic.

Where Can I Find Decent Affordable Child Care?

   Hahahahahaha. Forgive me for laughing in a bitter and cynical fashion, but you happen to have hit upon the most serious problem facing the Free World today: the international child-care crisis.
   In the old days, of course, the Free World had an excellent system of high-quality, low-cost child care in this country, namely your mother. Unfortunately, however, your mother is no longer interested in caring for children. She is interested in spending what little is left of her life among furniture that does not have Hawaiian Punch stains all over it. And you, of course, can’t engage in child care, because you need to get out and have a Rewarding Career so you can have a chance to earn enough money to pay for child care.
   Except there is hardly any available. You go around checking out preschool facilities, and you keep finding yourself in dank basements where the staff is missing a large percentage of its teeth and the educational materials consist of four crayons—all burnt sienna—and a GI Joe doll with most of the limbs pulled off. The result is that people are desperate. People who work in New jersey are dropping their children off each morning at child-care centers in Utah.
   Fortunately there is some hope. A new company recently opened for business, called the Exactly What You Are Looking For Child Care Company. It has spacious, clean, modern, well-equipped facilities within walking distance of your home or office; it’s open from 5 A.M. until as late as you want; and it’s staffed by middle-aged British women who love children and attend church regularly and are all licensed pediatricians. The cost is $3.50 per child per day. If you’re interested in enrolling your child in this excellent program, all you have to do is kill the Wicked Witch of the West.

How Children Affect Your Sex Life

   Children are Nature’s very own form of birth control. To illustrate how they perform this vital function, let’s take a look at a minute-by-minute schedule, showing how my wife and I put our six-year-old son, Robert, to bed on a typical evening. To make sure we have some time to ourselves, we try to have him in bed by 8 P.m., which means we start the procedure a full hour earlier:
   7 P.m.—We announce to Robert that it’s time to get ready for bed.
   7:04, 7:09, 7:12, 7:14, 7:17, 7:18, 7:22, 7:24, 7:25, 7:26 & 7:27—We announce to Robert that he really has to start getting ready for bed Right Now and we are Not Kidding.
   7:28—Robert goes to his room and actually starts getting ready for bed.
   7:29—Robert notices that his rubber Godzilla doll is missing. How he notices this, in a room containing roughly 78,500 toys, nobody can explain, but he does notice it, and of course all other activities must cease until we can resolve this matter because God forbid that a child should be required to go to bed without his rubber Godzilla doll.
   7:43—We locate Godzilla and Robert begins getting ready for bed again. He is supposed to take off his clothes and put on his pajamas. He can do this All By Himself.
   9:27—So far, All By Himself, Robert has removed his shirt and, if he is really on a roll, one of his shoes. I go in to help him along.
   9:30—Now in his pajamas, Robert has his teeth brushed, which is the signal for him to announce that he is hungry. We tell him that this is his own fault, because he did not finish supper, and he absolutely cannot have any more food, no sir, forget it, not a chance, it’s time he learned his lesson, etc.
   9:57—Robert finishes a bowl of Zoo-Roni and submits to having teeth brushed again.
   10:02—We read a bedtime story, Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr. Seuss, which takes us quite a while because we must study every page very, very carefully in case there is some tiny detail we might have possibly missed when we read it on each of the previous 267 consecutive nights.
   10:43—We announce that it’s time to go to bed.
   10:45, 10:47, 10:51, 10:54, 10:56 & 10:59—We announce that it really is time to go to bed Right Now and we are Not Kidding.
   11:03—Robert actually gets into his bed. We tuck him in, kiss him good night, and creep silently out of the room, alone at last.
   11:17—Robert falls asleep and is immediately awakened by a terrible nightmare caused by being in bed with his face six inches from a rubber Godzilla doll. We remove it.
   11:28—We kiss Robert good night and creep silently out of the room, alone at last.
   11:32—Hearing noise from Robert’s room, we return to find him sobbing loudly. So upset that he is barely able to choke out the words, he explains that he has just realized that the mother bird in Horton Hatches the Egg loses her baby in the end, and even though she was terribly mean, she is probably very sorry by now, and very lonely. We try to explain that this is not at all the point that Dr. Seuss was trying to make, but Robert is inconsolable. Finally we agree to let him climb into bed with us, but “just for one minute.”
   2:47 A.m.—We return Robert to bed, kiss him good night, and creep silently from the room, alone at last.
   3:14, 3:58, 4:26, 5:11 & 5:43—The household goes on Red Alert status as various routine nightmares occur, each one causing us to stagger, half-asleep, down the hallway, like actors in a scene from Night of the Living Dead Parents.
   6:12—Dawn breaks.
   Whenever I read newspaper stories about people who have, say, nine children, I never ask myself: “How do they manage to take care of them all?” I ask myself: “Where did they find the time to conceive them all?”
   I don’t mean to suggest, by what I’ve said in this chapter, that children are bad for a relationship. Because in the end, the negative aspects of being a parent—the loss of intimacy, the expense, the total lack of free time, the incredible burden of responsibility, the constant nagging fear of having done the wrong thing, etc.—are more than outweighed by the positive aspects, such as never again lacking for primitive drawings to attach to your refrigerator with magnets.

Chapter 10. How To Have An Affair

   My first piece of advice is that if you’re planning to have an affair, you should read this chapter in a safe place, such as the linen closet. You don’t want to be sitting around the living room, in plain view of your spouse, reading a chapter entitled, in great big letters, “How to Have an Affair.” I recommend that you hide this book under your garments and say to your spouse: “Well, I guess I’ll go sit in the linen closet with a flashlight for a while!” Your spouse will never suspect a thing. Unless you don’t have a linen closet. That would be a dead giveaway.
   Another dead giveaway is acting guilty. Let’s take a typical person—we’ll call him “Ed”[1]—who is having an affair with a woman at his office. If Ed has a guilty conscience, he may accidentally reveal this in casual conversation with his wife:
   ED’S WIFE: Would you like another corn muffin, dear?
   ED: I’m having an affair with a woman in my office!
   Even if Ed’s wife is not a trained psychologist, she might conceivably gather, from certain subtle verbal “clues” Ed is subconsciously dropping, that something “fishy” is going on. Ed must make more of an eff ort to watch his words:
   ED’S WIFE: Would you like another corn muffin, dear?
   ED: I’m not having an affair with a woman in my office!
   Most affairs occur at the office, of course, which leads us to another important rule of affair-having: Never be discreet at the Office. To illustrate why this is important, let’s consider two people, Ellen and Chuck, who have worked together in a large corporate office for several years, and have recently started having an affair.
   Up to this point, Ellen and Chuck have probably been behaving the way men and women always behave in offices, which is to say: constantly winking and leering and engaging in loud and fun suggestive sexual banter. Behaving like lust-crazed fools has been a major form of entertainment in offices for as long as anybody can remember; in terms of total American corporation employee hours consumed, suggestive banter ranks well ahead of work, and only slightly behind making Xerox copies of personal documents.
   But like so many couples, Chuck and Ellen, now that they are engaging in real, as opposed to pretend, sexual activity, suddenly decide they have to be discreet. They never banter. They never eat lunch together any more. They walk past each other without even looking at each other. When they are forced, by circumstances, to be together, they display the same kind of warmth and closeness toward each other as the Vice-president of the United States displays toward deceased heads of state. They are formal and cool.
   They are also morons. The other employees, who, if they have been in the corporate world more than six weeks, have already witnessed hundreds of other major office affairs, will immediately recognize the cause of this sudden change in behavior. Ellen and Chuck might just as well go around wearing convention-style nametags that say: HI! MY NAME IS ELLEN! I’M HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH CHUCKI!
   Within days everybody in the office will know what’s going on. The affair will be discussed extensively in staff meetings. It could well appear in the annual report to the stockholders.
   What this means, of course, is that if you want your affair to go unnoticed by your co-workers, you have to be blatantly obvious about it. Chuck should wait until the office is extremely quiet, then stand up at his desk and shout across 47 desks to Ellen: “HEY ELLEN! WHAT DO YOU SAY WE MEET AT THE OUT O’TOWN MOTOR LODGE AFTER WORK TODAY AND HAVE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE!” And Ellen should shout back: “HECK YES!! I HAVE MY DIAPHRAGM RIGHT HERE IN MY PURSE!”
   Chuck’s and Ellen’s co-workers would never suspect a thing. “What a couple of kidders Chuck and Ellen are!” the co-workers would chuckle.

How You Can Tell If Your Spouse Is Having an Affair

   You can always tell. No matter how careful your spouse is, he or she is going to make a mistake somewhere, and you’ll catch it, if you know the Major Warning Signs, which are:
   1. Your spouse acts strange.
   2. Your spouse, trying to trick you, acts normal.
   If you notice either of these Warning Signs, you should wait until your spouse is in a vulnerable position, such as reclining in a dental chair, and then you should point-blank ask the following gently probing question (if your spouse is male): “Well? Who is she?”
   Now listen closely to the answer. If it’s something specific like: “You mean the person I’m having an affair with? She is Dorina Mae Swiggins,” that means your suspicions are probably justified. But if it’s something evasive like: “What are you talking about?” or “Who is Who?”, then you quite frankly have to ask yourself how come your spouse is refusing to answer a simple direct question. Either way, this would be a good time to read the next chapter.

Chapter 11. How To Put New Life Into Your Marriage Or Else Get A Divorce

   Time takes its toll on every marriage. The sense of romance and adventure that you feel as you take your wedding vows on that bright Saturday afternoon in June inevitably gives way to familiarity and even boredom, often as early as 8:30 that evening. Yet some couples seem to go on happily forever, a good example being Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, former owners of the Philippines. Long ago, they discovered a secret that has worked its magic for many successful couples: thoughtfulness. Ferdinand and Imelda were always showing each other, in little ways, that they cared. For example, when Imelda would get depressed because of the hassle and strain of everyday life, plus the fact that she was bloating up like an inflatable life raft, Ferdinand would say to her: “Buttercup, you look depressed. Why not take the national treasury and purchase every luxury consumer object in France?” This thoughtful gesture never failed to perk her up.
   Of course you may not be in a position to demonstrate quite that level of care, but there are things you can do to show your commitment to each other—little, thoughtful, romantic gestures that say you still think the other person is “somebody special.” For example, you can:
   1. Try to remember (you guys, especially) to flush the toilet.
   2. Remember your spouse’s birthday. “Hey!” you can say. “Wasn’t your birthday last month?”
   3. Go dancing, or even ...
   4. Go dancing with your spouse.
   5. On your anniversary, give your spouse an appropriate traditional gift for whatever year it is, as shown on the accompanying chart:
   Number Of Anniversary Traditional Gift
   1st Ore
   5th McNuggets
   10th Veg-o-Matic
   15th Oil change
   20th “Slim” whitman album
   30th TV tray or assault rifle
   40th Frankincense
   50th Ointment
   60th Suppository
   70th Indonesian Fighting Snake
   6. Consider renewing your wedding vows. The best place to do this is Las Vegas, where “wedding chapels” are a major industry, along with divorce, gambling, and scorpion paperweights. My wife and I renewed our vows in Vegas a little while back, on a Friday the 13th, in the very same chapel
   (everything I am telling you here is the truth) where Joan Collins got married her third or fourth time. The whole thing took less than four minutes and cost only $50, plus a tip for the minister, who was named (I swear) Dr. Eva C. Tubby.
   7. Go on a Get-away Vacation Fling. just the two of you. One day, when the pressure gets to be too much, you should just say to your spouse, out of the blue: “Let’s go!” Then you should impulsively throw a few items into
   a suitcase, jump into a cab, race to the airport, and hop on the next plane to Hawaii, or the Caribbean, or Europe, or wherever you want to go. Why not? You’ll be glad you did it. Once you’re up in the air, settled back in your seats, sipping champagne (Why not?), the two of you can hold hands, close your eyes, and just let your minds drift away to ... THE
   CHILDREN!! MY GOD, YOU FORGOT THE CHILDREN!!! TURN THE PLANE BACK RIGHT
   NOW!!!
   Sometimes, however, even thoughtful and romantic gestures such as these don’t do the trick. Sometimes you find that the two of you, no matter how much you may once have cared for each other, are starting to drift apart. It’s the little things that give you away: you hardly ever talk any more; you no longer kiss each other when you come home; you live in different states; etc. Maybe it’s time to face up to the fact that you’re just not right for each other any more. Hey, it happens. People change. They get older, they get larger, and sometimes they start to smell bad. Maybe the time has come to think about—let’s come right out and say it:

Divorce

   The most important thing is to get yourself a lawyer. Oh, I realize you probably think you and your spouse can work this thing out amicably without any third parties. But what if suddenly your spouse gets a lawyer, and you end up stone broke on the street wearing only a Hefty trash bag? You can’t afford to take this chance. You need a lawyer, too, so you and your spouse can both end up wearing Hefty trash bags. I recommend the ones with the patented “Cinch Sak” drawstring top.

How to Select a Lawyer

   The best way to select a lawyer is to watch late-night television, which is where your top legal minds advertise. You’re looking for one who can demonstrate:
   * Integrity, in the form of wearing a dark suit;
   * A sound knowledge of the law, in the form of standing in front of a shelf with a lot of books on it; and
   * A sincere personal interest in you, in the form of making the following speech: “Hello. I’m Leonard Packmonger, of Leonard Packmonger Legal Attorneys of the Law Associates. Does your back hurt sometimes? Do you ever use consumer products? If so, I would say that, based upon my many, many weeks of experience in handling cases just like yours, you definitely have good grounds for a major lawsuit. Come on in and let’s talk about it and sign some binding documents. just for stopping by, we’ll give you a free, no-obligation neck brace.”

Grounds for Divorce

   At one time it was difficult to get out of a marriage unless there was some kind of very serious problem with it, such as that one or more of the people involved had become deceased.
   Today, fortunately, it is easier to get divorced in most states than to get a transmission repaired properly. The only requirement is that you have a legal reason, which is technically known as “grounds.” If you have no grounds of your own, you can probably get some from your lawyer, who will have an ample supply left over from previous cases; or you can select some from this convenient list of grounds, all of which are 100 percent legally valid in every state in the union. Or at least they should be.
   * Wearing shorts and black knee socks at the same time.
   * Calling you “Sweetie Beancakes” in front of strangers.
   * Forgetting to buy beer.
   * Repeatedly putting the ice cube tray back in the refrigerator with two or fewer ice cubes in it.
   * Bringing the car home with just enough gas in it so that, if you shut the engine off and coast on the downhill slopes, you can get as far as the end of the driveway.
   * Any cigar-related activity.
   * Standing next to you with a sour facial expression at a party while you tell
   a really terrific joke and then loudly announcing the punchline three-tenths of a second before you get to it and then saying: “Isn’t that AWFUL?” (NOTE: In some states this is grounds not only for divorce, but also for murder.)
   * Golf.
   * One day, with no warning, bringing home:
   1. a cat, or
   2. an Amway representative.
   * Leaving his or her toenails in a prominent location as though they were decorative art objects.
   * Using the word “frankly” a lot and not meaning it as a joke.
   * Operating a loud household appliance during the Super Bowl.
   * Secretly liking Geraldo Rivera.

The Divorce Proceedings

   You want to keep them as quiet as possible. You don’t want them to be highly publicized, like the divorce a few years back in Palm Beach, Florida, involving wealthy socialites Peter and Roxanne Pulitzer, in which Peter claimed that Roxanne had slept with a three-foot trumpet. Naturally the national news media found this to be far more interesting than anything that has ever happened in the Middle East, so now everybody has heard about it. Roxanne Pulitzer could visit a remote and primitive Amazon jungle tribe, and the tribespeople would all gather around her and make trumpet sounds.
   So you want to avoid letting your intimate secrets out. Not that I am suggesting for one second that you have ever slept with a trumpet. You are more the bassoon type.

Starting Over after the Divorce

   Eventually the divorce will become final, and you can start picking up the broken pieces of your life and selling them to pay off your legal bills. But also you must think about the future, and, yes, meeting someone new. You must not be afraid. Oh, sure, you got burned and you got hurt. But that is no reason to give up. You must not be afraid. You must show the same kind of gumption as the cowboy, who, if he gets thrown off a horse, climbs right back on, and if he gets thrown off again, climbs right back on again, and so on, until virtually all of his brain cells are dead.
   Back to Chapter 1.

Homes And Other Black Holes

Dave Barry

Introduction: Why It Was Probably A Mistake To Buy This Book
Chapter 1. Getting Ready To Get Real Depressed
Deciding Which House To Buy
Neighborhood Checklist
Choosing A Real Estate Broker
Chapter 2. How To Pretend To Look Knowledgeably At Houses
How Many Houses Should You Look At?
Home Inspection Checklist
The Roof
The Floors
The Plumbing
The Electrical System
Heating and Cooling
Insects
Chapter 3. How To Get Very Deeply Into Debt
How To Negotiate Like A Real Slimeball
Standard Agreement Of Sale
Are You Financially Fit?
Money You Have
Money You Need To Buy A House
The Ritual Closing Ceremony
Budget Meals For New Homeowners
Chapter 4. Moving: A Common Mistake
Professional Movers: How To Get Your Possessions Back
Moving Yourself
The Garage Sale
Getting A Bunch Of Empty Liquor Boxes And Hurling Things Into Them At Random
Helpful Packing Hints:
How To Move A Pet
How To Move Children
A Smart Moving Idea For Two-Car Families
Moving Your Possessions Into Your New Home
Unpacking
What Condition The Previous Owners Will Have Left Your New Home In
Getting Your New Phone, Gas, Electricity, Appliances, Cable Television, And Water Hooked Up
Chapter 5. Making New Enemies
Finding Somebody To Fix Your Car
Selecting A Supermarket
Joining Local Clubs And Organizations
Giving Money To The Local Police Association
Selecting A School For Your Child
Enrolling Your Children In Several Dozen After-School Activities
Chapter 6. It’s Noon: Do You Know Where Your Contractor Is?
The Basic Contracting Process
Chapter 7.Redecorating For Under 650,000 Dollars
Refinishing Furniture
Interior Design Hints From Top “Pros”
Chapter 8. Good Housekeeping, Or Learning To Live With Filth
Useful Home-Cleaning Hints
Chapter 9. Practical Home Weapons Systems
The Electronic Burglar Alarm System
A Large, Stupid Dog
One Final Word About Home Security
Crimestopper Tips
Chapter 10. A Lawn Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
The Very First Lawn
The Future: Lawns In Space
Lawn Care In America
Proper Lawnmower Care
Shrubs
Gardening
Chapter 11. Getting Some Fool To Buy Your House
The Best Way To Sell A House
Do You Need A Real Estate Broker?
How Much Should You Ask For Your House?
Getting Your House Ready To Show
Horrible Relatives
How You Will Feel After You Finally Sign The Agreement Of Sale