(First, can I BE this girl when I grow up? She sews. She knits. She crochets. She dyes things and makes candles. Boy, when I get a bigger kitchen/workspace, look out.)
You know it’s bad if you need to write about it in order to understand what happened. And, with the idea that just about everyone mentioned in this blog is either part of a story or a character study, you know that someday the ubiquitous Anonymous Marty & Bertha are going to be part of a novel or play or other piece of fiction. World at Large: You are now hereby warned.
It all started off tamely, we’d hung out with them before, and it was the first time they’d invited us to their house. Now, in the U.S., that’s just not that big a deal. It means “I like you and why are we spending money in restaurants when we could be eating junk food in more comfortable chairs?” In Scotland, it must mean something else – maybe that you’re now considered family, and instead of spending time in the pub, they’re ready to bring the pub into the house. (If that’s true, M&B, please disown me NOW.)
I think the worst thing is that I genuinely like this couple, and when I first met them, I was impressed by the care they took with one another. I finally felt like these were people who wouldn’t think we were weird because we’ve been together for dog’s years, and still like each other. Maybe they wouldn’t try and split us all by gender — “You and I can talk fashion, while the guys talk philosophy,” or treat us like bugs under a microscope: “What do you think of Hilary Clinton?” or, worse, “So, how’d you two hook up?, which, on the surface is an innocent question, which translates: “Black/White? Thin/Fat? Handsome/Plain? WFT???” I thought we’d found a couple we could hang out and do nothing with, but we made the mistake of bringing out board games, and right before my eyes, Anonymous M&B turned right into … my parents.
Many years ago, before I understood that one has to be properly ashamed of one’s parents in order to achieve mental transcendence, I used to love that my parents played volleyball. I mean, *parents.* Most of them don’t do anything exactly, or at least nothing interesting, but mine were different. They were younger than everyone’s and they were kind of, by a sneaky definition, cool.
Except when someone decided to put them on the same team.
Wow. You’ve never seen such evil erupting from the mouth of a man who ostensibly loved his wife. Pop turned into Kali Yuga; complete with fangs and bloodlust. My mother’s options were to quit playing or change teams. She changed teams, and continued to play for a few years, but in the end, she quit.
I hated that, but at least I was smart enough to see that it was my Dad, with his sneering, snarling jack-assery, who was no longer cool.
Fast forward to last night. He’s nursing a big beer and a little buzz, she’s sipping something and seltzer and is wound up and talkative. She’s competitive, he’s not. She insists that we play couple against couple and assumes that they can wipe the board with us. He shrugs, says “Sure.” We play. They …can’t. And everything flies apart. She goes from occasional snapping and whining and lays into him, and we literally don’t know where to look. Castigating profanity-laced fishwifery ensues.
It was then that I realized I was grateful that I am old(ish). I don’t care anymore about dumb things, like games, and which couple wins. I don’t care anymore that other people have things (they have Wii and we don’t), do things, think things or know things different from me. It sank in last night that I don’t have to defend my turf, blow up, back down, be envious, get jealous or play games. Life takes a helluva lot less effort if you grow the hell up.
He takes his injured dignity into the kitchen to salve it with another beer. She wears out and eventually winds down. We make noises about homework and busy schedules and call a car which takes an excruciating hour and a half to arrive. We lurk in the hall. We smile meaninglessly. We wait.
She leans against the wall, studies my clothes, which are layered and paired and dyed according to my own whim. She cocks her head and takes in my hair and my jewelry. “I like what you’ve done,” she tells me seriously, when I’ve cheerfully, lazily, effortlessly done nothing at all.
