Ordinary Care: I listen far better than I talk...

I just love listening to my elders. They can teach me so much.
I have become the driver to my septuagenarian family matriarch, and she has no idea how she blesses me every time we go somewhere, even if it's just to the doctor's office.
Take yesterday, for instance...
First, let me say that, when you roll with older people, you must be prepared to talk about any and every thing, and switch subjects at the drop of a dime. Also, know that, even the most educated, elegant, and refined of them, when they are passionate about something, their language tends to get a bit "bawdy". And, they READ EVERYTHING!!
She asked, "Have you been reading about Bill Cosby?"
Before I could answer, she said, "He's as old as hell.... Why do you think they waited this long to bring this mess up?" Pointing her finger at no one, she said... "Follow the money!!" She proceeded to talk about entertainers and athletes, and how it is common knowledge that they  have followers, hangers-on who have a need to find their place in the limelight, so they go to a grown man's hotel room, late at night, alone, to have drinks and do "whatever else", and they get paid in the process. "They know what's going on, and they know what's going to happen, but they go anyway..." Her voice trailed off, while she thought for a moment. When she spoke again, she said, "He is about to reinvent himself, to do something big again, and they're trying to stop him!" Satisfied with her assessment of the matter, she stopped, and I pondered what she had said. I thought about her, and how she had, in the course of her 57-year-career, reinvented herself, upgraded her skills, studied to make her skills marketable, and moved up in her field... and even though she swears she has retired, I sense only a transition.
During our comfortable silence, she had been thinking, and suddenly she said, (and I felt like I was coming in on the middle of a conversation she had been having in her head), "and those girls who have come forward at UVA... What were they thinking when they went to fraternity parties alone, drinking?" Since it is both our alma mater, I wanted to hear what she thought. I had had this conversation with my "daughter-in-law" (my son's best friend, who I adopted as my own, married a Wahoo) the night before last, and we both agreed that it is a rule never to go anywhere alone, especially at night, in Charlottesville. That was true, even in the '70's, and she assured me that it was still true when she was there, and she graduated in 2013.
"What are mothers teaching their girls these days?"
I thought back a couple of weeks to my daughter's return to ODU for Homecoming, and realized that, although she left home alone in the middle of the day, her entourage was waiting for her in Norfolk, and they were together the whole time. The same thing goes when she goes to D.C. She even nixed a trip not too long ago because the friend who wanted her to go was an unreliable companion... and she wasn't about to get left by herself!!
So... why didn't these girls know that?
My septuagenarian mentor said, "ORDINARY CARE... that's all they needed to know. Mothers have been failing their own children, boys and girls, by not teaching them ordinary care!"
You heard the lady... Ordinary Care!      

What are we teaching our kids?

Do our kids REALLY know what learning is all about? Sometimes I think we have concentrated so much on testing and regurgitating facts that students miss the point.
The first few days each term are difficult for every teacher. Between trying to get all the registration paperwork done and trying to learn names, it can be really stressful. Once you get to know students' names, it is easy to get them in check, and once you really get to know them, you can, most likely keep them that way. At least that is the way it was in the "olden days", when students respected teachers and discipline problems were few... the days when a call home was all it took to get students in line and ready to work. Those days are gone.
When I retired from the middle school/ junior high scene, I just knew things would be better. It is no different on the college and university level than it is in middle school, although one would think that it would be easier since the students are pretty much grown and have paid to be there. Most students are no problem, but each semester I encounter at least one "challenge". This type of "challenge" is usually female, and, most often, these students are the laziest and least motivated. I don't think I'd mind too much if they were the most prepared... the ones eager to get the show on the road... but they are usually the ones who, although the syllabus is printed out, complete with the course calendar which tells them which days which things need to be done, have the nerve to ask "What are we supposed to do?" Their in-class posture generally alerts you that they are going to be the ones who will offer resistance. The newly-adopted behavior of keeping their cell phones out after you have begun teaching is a quick "tell", and you must actually TELL those students to put their phones away... unless they have a copy of the text downloaded on the phone, which some of them actually do have, but you can tell which ones don't. Then, after they are clearly not listening, they raise their hands and ask..."What are we supposed to do?" The urge to say..."NOTHING" is clearly in my mind, but I struggle not to let that thought come out. I simply turn around, count to ten in my head, turn back around, and go on with the lecture/lesson.
A new development on the college scene is the "challenge" who "claims" that class discussions make them feel scared, apprehensive, or offended, and they will go so far as to try and "report" (or write on evaluation forms) that something must be wrong with the class or the teacher for making them "think or feel some kind of way", instead of just having facts thrown at them. Typically, they just want me to stand up and lecture... they don't want to participate. In order to participate, they have to listen, think, and contribute... and that is way too much to ask of them. If I stand there and lecture, they are free to let their minds drift into the meaningless zone. Some of them have not read, which makes it hard for them to participate. When they contribute, their classmates and I expect them to have something worthwhile to say... and their classmates will call them on "talking stupid", being naive, racist, or simply ill-informed.  I simply monitor the discussion, so that it doesn't get out of hand.
It is then that they are THINKING!
   

Addictive Love

Addictive Love

Part I

July 26, 2013

            Addiction is never a good thing. Whatever you are addicted to becomes your master… and you become a slave. Some addictions are better tolerated, but all can be deadly. As much as I have talked about my addiction to food, and how I had to change my mindset… and “Eat to live instead of live to eat”, I have rarely talked about the other addiction I had to face up close and personal, partly because it wasn’t MY addiction. I have never been much of a drinker. In fact, I am usually the “designated driver”, because one drink is enough for me. I do drink more, at times, but rarely to excess, especially if it is going to make me sick. I hate throwing up more than I hate anything in the world… and that knowledge keeps me in check, and has kept me in check for years. I have never seen much point in doing drugs, not for me or for anyone else. Unfortunately, my partner, my lover, my better half, my husband, was addicted, first to alcohol and then to drugs, and only a few months after his 47^th birthday, that addiction caused the massive stroke that ended his life.

            His life ended long before that… the last seven years of his life were pure hell, and although I could see it, I couldn’t stop it. He had removed me, and our children, from his life, so that we would not be party to his downward spiral. Although it was a noble gesture, I will forever wonder if there was something I could have done. He assured me, many times that there was nothing that I could do. We were friends to the end, and the only fault I could ever find in him was that he made some bad choices and had some really bad breaks.  That never stopped me from loving him or him from loving me. As sad as the situation was, our children survived and thrived because of the support of both parents… and the self-imposed quarantine of one parent who loved them too much to allow them to get involved. Addiction is a bitch.

              When I think of Ronnie Hill, I will always remember him as my “go-to guy” in a lot of ways. Last year, for the first time in my life, I had to purchase a vehicle without Ronnie Hill’s help (I always called him by his first and last names, before and after we were married… it was a term of endearment.) I got help from a friend, who was able to help me navigate through the paperwork and the approach women must use when they visit dealerships, so they won’t get hoodwinked into buying cars based on the vanity mirrors and the number of cup holders, but he could not do what Ronnie Hill could do… make me feel absolutely confident about buying a vehicle. Nobody could do that, except Ronnie Hill. After November 16, 2004, Ronnie Hill would never be able to do that for me, or for anyone else. Ronnie Hill was gone.

            Anyway, ever since I bought that first Pontiac Bonneville, only days after I signed my contract with Dinwiddie County Public Schools, Ronnie Hill was my go-to man when it came to vehicles. I test-drove it to Jim Whelan Exxon, and Ronnie Hill, who was working as a mechanic there, listened to it run, opened the hood and watched the movable parts, closed the hood and told me to buy the car. I did. I trusted him that much. It ran like a dream, and the only reason I traded it, for a much smaller car, was that, during the gas crisis, buying gas for the car became more expensive than the car payments. When I first met him, he had some relationship things going on in his life, things that would play an integral part in the rest of his life, and so did I, but we managed to maneuver our way through those things. After that, he was faced with the comments of his interfering boss, who assured him that a woman with a college degree and a teaching job would have no parts of a man like him. Some years… and a couple of cars later, Ronnie Hill finally got up the nerve to ask me out, and I said I would go out with him. He wasn’t that bashful… just a bit cautious and it didn’t take long to find out why.  

            Ronnie Hill called me every evening for weeks, and we talked and talked. He never talked much when I saw him, but he told me all about himself over the phone. He talked so candidly about himself that I couldn’t help but like and respect him. He wasn’t the kind of person who lied, and when he did, it never worked for him, so most of the time; he chose not to do it. He talked about his previous relationship and about paying child support for his daughter, but not really getting an opportunity to see her, since her mother was against visitation. I loved the way he spoke about loving her, and in my dreams, I thought about how good a father he would be. I was becoming addicted to this man without really even knowing him. I asked him if my weight bothered him, and he told me that, if it had, he wouldn’t have asked me out. Ronnie Hill couldn’t have cared less about how much I weighed. He liked me for me. He talked about not having finished high school, and asked if that bothered me, but he knew it didn’t. He was one of the most intelligent people I had ever met, even though he thought I was joking when I told him that. He had learned what many college graduates had never learned… he knew the language of people. If he felt awkward talking to people, he never let it show.  He was always himself. We were a perfect match.

            When Ronnie Hill asked me out, he informed me that I would have to drive, since his license had been partially suspended, for driving under the influence. He told me about the events in his recent life that had caused him, he said, to drink and drive… drive dangerously at that, and that he was only licensed to drive to work and back home. A mechanic without a license is usually unemployed, so he felt lucky to be allowed to keep his job, and he wasn’t about to get caught driving at any other time, which would cause him to have his license suspended totally. I assured him that it was alright with me. I liked him enough to accept that he had made a mistake, and he was paying for it, and I wasn’t going to punish him. He was attending meetings regularly, trying to deal with his drinking problem. He didn’t, at that time, admit that it was alcoholism, but he did admit that he had been drinking for most of his life… probably started around age ten, and drank even more after his brother, his closest brother and best friend, died while they were swimming, an event that haunted him for the rest of his life. He should have been the one who died, he kept saying. Even his mother thought that, and voiced it in a moment of pain. She didn’t really mean it, but all that registered in his mind was that she had said it. It devastated him.

            The first night we went out, we had a marvelous time. We had dinner and then went out to a local night spot to dance. Ronnie Hill couldn’t dance, and he readily admitted it, but we stayed on the dance floor because I liked to dance. The more I joked him about the way he danced, the more he danced, just to make me laugh. Although we had a couple of drinks, we didn’t drink much. As time went on, and we dated more, Ronnie Hill drank more. He could handle his liquor, I supposed it was because he had been drinking for so long and had gotten into the habit of drinking a lot. When we were around his family, I noticed that all of them drank more than I was used to seeing people drink. Then again, although my mother was not a drinker, she had family members who drank, but the party always ended before anybody got too drunk. That was the only time there was alcohol in my house. I never spent much time around my father’s family, but I knew they drank, too. My daddy drank almost every Friday night, but he never brought it home, except inside him, and he came home singing and went to sleep. He had relaxed himself.

            It is funny (unusual) how we, as a society, accept the consumption of alcohol, and even alcoholics, without condemning the drug (and alcohol is indeed a drug) or the user. It is only when alcoholism disrupts the family that we even take notice. If an alcoholic works every day, pays the bills, takes care of home, doesn’t fight or shoot or cut people or beat people up… we allow them to be alcoholics, and we don’t rush them off to treatment facilities. Calm alcoholics seldom get any treatment at all. We simply let them be. It is only when alcoholics become abusive that we even think twice about their illness. In the African American family, the male (father figure) is almost expected to take a few drinks, knowing the abuse he has to suffer, the demeaning treatment, the debasement he suffers, usually at the hands of white employers and colleagues.  Alcohol is his release. It is quite different when women drink… there is more of a stigma attached, but still there is no real condemnation. If she drinks too much, she is described as being sick, and it is acceptable for her to get help. Still alcohol is acceptable. Alcohol is a social drug, and there are even parents who give it to their kids without thinking about any later effects. Everybody drinks.

             

Heritage Poem

Heritage poem… This is MY country!

2 February 2013 

I know not when my ancestors came to this country

No dates, no names, no family crests…

I do know that they came at different times, and some

            were already here when the first settlers landed on Plymouth Rock.

How do I know?

I know by looking at the pictures from as far back as forever

Rainbow-black family… some light enough to pass for white, some as black as the night

            with every shade in between.

And so I know

            in the squalid, nasty bellies of slave ships, came some

            aboard the bright and promising ships from the shores of Europe some came

            and they were welcomed and cared for

            by my nature-worshipping, resourceful ancestors whose country this already was.

So, when I hear selfish, self-centered white Americans

            speak of “taking THEIR COUNTRY back”… I want to scream:

THIS IS MY COUNTRY! AMERICA IS MY COUNTRY, TOO!!

            and perhaps because of my heritage, it is more MY COUNTRY than yours!

My ancestors’ blood built this…

            My ancestors planted and harvested the crops that made this country the richest nation in the world.

            My ancestors taught your ill-prepared and ill-advised ancestors how to survive in harsh and changing climates, and how to protect themselves from famine and disease

            My ancestors, the descendents of kings and queens, allowed your devious, thieving ancestors to rob them of their rich and colorful heritage, to take away their freedom, their language, their stories, their pride… to help your ancestors build a country they stole from my indigenous ancestral line.

            My ancestors bought into an American dream that was never theirs, because every time they got close to claiming it, to claiming even their forty acres and a mule, the dream was snatched out of their reach by your deceptive ancestors… claiming to take their country back.

            My ancestors believed that your lying ancestors were going to deliver on a promise for which my ancestors marched and sang and fought and died…were fired upon with guns and fire hoses, and had the dogs set upon them… not knowing then that the assistance they were promised required the surrendering of what little pride was salvaged to pass on and be instilled in the children and grandchildren… required that the young ones buy into the slave mentality, money hungry, label grabbing, bling-oriented culture that had been created as a trap, just in case, by some chance, our children had managed to salvage some Black pride, Black love of self, Black is BEAUTIFUL-ness.   

America created me… by giving me all the heritages that are mine. I inherited America.

America allowed the beating and raping, polluting my ethnicity then blaming me for the chestnut color of my skin, the milky/ creamy color of my sisters and brothers, the boot-black shine of my cousins, aunts and uncles

America

            created my crinkly, nappy hair, my thick lips, my high cheekbones

            created my naturally curly hair, European nose, translucent skin tones

America created me and all the things that I am… and am not.

America seeks to deprive me of some things they can never take from me:

            my indomitable spirit, my natural beauty, my deep rich voices, my bodies’ rhythmic sensual sway, my ability to look young and be energetic until the day I die… even if I live a hundred years.

THIS IS MY COUNTRY. AMERICA IS MY COUNTRY, TOO!!

            and because of my heritage, it IS more my country than it is yours.

I AM AMERICA.

It's Amazing... He said WHAT?

It never ceases to amaze me, the things people say and do, and think it's okay.
People seem to have "selective memory" when it comes to the things they say to one another.
Didn't it hurt, when we were kids, to have other kids say nasty things to us? We learned to laugh it off or come up with hurtful retorts, but the pain was still there. Why, then, do we, as adults, feel that we can say and do anything to others. As blunt as I can be, I learned long ago that I can think anything I want, but if it isn't nice, or at least helpful, I should keep it to myself... and even though it isn't easy sometimes, I try never to comment on what people LOOK LIKE! It is secretly gratifying, and has been for the last 20 years (since I started on my weight-loss journey), to see many of the people who felt the need to tell me, every day when I was a fat teen, that I was fat; get and stay, bigger than I am.
Speaking of the things people say...
People are coming down on Vice Pres Joe Biden for saying that the middle class has been buried for that last four years. They say he is dumb for saying it. I say, he is right, but he and the POTUS are not to blame for it. The Republican "party of NO", is responsible. The blocking of every helpful policy, just to make sure the President fails, has been responsible. If people, republicans, tea-partiers, and all those who trash the President, don't see it, then they are really blind and perhaps a bit "slow". (I was about to say "they rode the short bus to school", but that is mean and truly an affront to those people who actually did ride the short bus, who know what the POTUS has been doing... working for health care for them and for you and me.) 
Sticks and stones can hurt no worse than the stuff that comes out of our mouths! Let's remember that the next time we get ready to say something that isn't nice. It might just come back to bite you in the butt!!

Spouses-R-Us: The Ronnie-Test

Spouses-R-Us: The Ronnie-Test

Lord knows I’m not a relationship expert, and I never professed to be one, but I am never reluctant to comment on what I see as relationship issues—even my own. Most of my good friends are male, for many reasons, not the least of which is that men hate drama, almost as much as I do. Fortunately, however, they have taken the role as “brothers” rather than “boyfriends”. Brothers I can deal with; boyfriends, not so much. I have a few friends who are women, the best ones are just as drama-free as I am, and the others turn to me to dispel the drama from their lives. They bring it, and I dismiss it for them, sometimes by just telling them the truth about themselves, and sometimes by just telling them they’re being stupid. Either way works.

The fantastic thing about Ronnie was that he was a bit of both, a friend/brother and a lover, and there was a reason for it. Ronnie had four, all-the-way-live sisters, who taught him a lot about women, and he learned the lessons well. My male friends who seem to have the most relationship problems are the men who only have brothers. Men, especially men who are raised in a family of boys, seem to have very little workable knowledge about women. Part of it is the fact that the only woman they really know about is their mother (or perhaps aunts and grandmothers), and they either idolize her or they fear her. At the very least, they learn to dismiss her. Face it, women. Our sons, who have no sisters to keep it real, are “clueless” when they leave us and enter the realm of dating and marriage. They have not had the opportunity to watch their sisters, who are groomed from birth to become wives and maybe even mothers, grow into adulthood. Barbie dolls really do have a function, and that is why they are still selling today. They teach women how to be “girly”, a concept that men have no clue about.

 “Girly” girls exhibit the image of womanhood that men really love to see in a woman. There is this mystical “feminine-ness” about them that men just adore. I learned about this (and it’s one of those things that trips me out) when, as a child, my mother only let me stay outside and climb trees and play kickball for a while, then I had to come in, get clean and pretty, and sit down and play dolls until my dad came home. Don’t get me wrong… my dad, who had five sisters, wasn’t fooled because he indulged my love of doing not-so-girlie things by teaching me how to change the oil, and to change tires, and to cut grass. Even though he taught me those things, he still expected me to look and act “girly” at times, when it was necessary. My grandmother taught me other things about being girly, but those things relate more to my sensual views (the say no to “no nookie” things) than to simple, feminine behavior. Consequently, I learned to turn the girly behavior on and off, a sort of code-switching, which sometimes drives men crazy, and certainly makes relationships difficult. My “inner diva” likes to do this, just for the fun of it.

The woman who gets out of bed in the morning is rarely the woman that men are allowed to see, and for some, the transformation is phenomenal. It involves not only a “look”, but also an attitude… and men are shocked to death when they finally meet the real woman. Most of the time, they don’t find out until after the wedding, though. A guy friend of mine once told me that he was a groomsman at the wedding of a friend of his. The bride, during the courtship was always all over the guy. At the wedding, however, as the groom leaned in for the kiss, the bride hissed through clenched teeth, “Don’t you dare smear my lipstick!” The relationship went downhill from there. That marriage didn’t last long enough to pay off the wedding expenses.

If Ronnie were alive today, he would tell you that the most valuable lesson he learned from his sisters was how to “shop” for the woman he wanted in his life. Because his sisters were so alike, but so different, the “shopping technique” he learned was to delve as deeply behind appearances as he could before he actually made a choice. It is a technique that everyone needs to learn, but that women, in the past, learned to master more quickly. Because we played with Barbie dolls, and Barbie had a beautiful house, a nice car, great clothes, and a good-looking man (Ken for some… my Barbie had G. I. Joe but that’s another story) that was what we were taught to look for and work toward. Too many women, however, chose “pretty Ricky” over “rugged Ronnie”, and ended up with “a mess”. Many others chose “bad-boy Bobby”, who turned out to be a handsome, selfish abuser, leaving a lot of Barbie’s bitter and abusive to other guys who try to enter their lives, guys who still believe in “girly” girls. Unfortunately, guys who believe they only want girly girls cannot be told, or even shown, that what they really want is a real woman… the kind of woman they tend to fear; a woman who is always real. She is not bitter, conniving, or selfish, and she is also not rugged or domineering. She’s just not “girly”.

Ronnie and I used to always shop together for toys for the kids, and it was a riot! If you’ve ever shopped at Toy-R-Us, you know that they have a lot of great looking toys, toys that look like they’d be fun to play with. The packaging says that these toys do lots of things, have all the bells and whistles, and are the ultimate in providing an excellent play experience for the buyer. Because he knew how to shop, Ronnie would insist that we be allowed to play with the toys before we bought them. More often than not, the toys that had the most “hype” were the ones which did not stand up to actually being tested. They would break, right there in the aisle of the store. If a toy stood up to the Ronnie-test, we bought it. If it didn’t, we left it in the store. The packaging never fooled him.

Women had to pass the Ronnie-test, too. When Ronnie and I started dating, I had already been teaching for a few years, and he had only seen me “dressed up”, looking girly. Not long into the relationship, Ronnie had a car to work on that required two extra hands to get the job done. I volunteered to help, and showed up to work in old jeans and a sweat shirt. It was chilly outside, and he tried to insist that I stay inside, where it was warm. I went outside because that was where he was. I don’t remember exactly what the job was, but I do know it involved the wheels, and that the bearings had to be greased before he could put them in. You should have seen the look on his face when I dug my newly-manicured nails into that can of grease and proceeded to work the grease through the bearings like a professional. He was thrilled. I could go from Barbie to grease monkey effortlessly. I had passed the Ronnie-test. We got married a few months later.     

Too many guys who want girly girls, and girls who want “Ken”, have been shopping for spouses at Wives-R-Us and Husbands-R-Us… maybe it’s a unisex store called Spouses-R-Us. As Pete, who says he has no idea why some of the guys he knows married the women they married, who has been married for thirty-two years, and who also has a bunch of real sisters (five), says, “Body by Fisher, Brains by Mattel (I say Fisher-Price)”.  Not all of them married for looks, but their reasoning still seems a little faulty (they married for the wrong reasons). The real reason for getting married is always to have someone who cares about you, who always has your back, who loves you, who is always concerned about what you need and willing to be there whenever and wherever you need them to be, and who always has time for you, even if they’re not Barbie or Ken…. That’s who Pat (Pete’s wife) is.
If you don’t have that, it’s time to go shopping.    

The “No-Nookie” Clause

The “No-Nookie” Clause

I guess my friends know I like to listen, even though I hate to give advice, so they come to me or call my phone, just so I can listen to their problems. The reason I don’t give advice is that I was raised a bit differently from many of them. My friends, especially the women, but I have found the men, too, were taught some relationship rules that I didn’t get. Like…I learned, in college, that many of the young women were there to find a suitable husband, so, their education was secondary. I went to college to get my degree, and to learn how to make it on my own, after I left mama’s house. That husband thing went right over my head. That’s another whole story. Sometimes I still feel dumb about the things I don’t know, but I don’t mind. Sometimes it trips me out!

A few years ago (quite a few now) when I was teaching in the county, a few of my colleagues and I were sitting around, just talking. There were all women in this group, and they were talking about the things they expected their husbands to do. One said, “My husband cooks every day, and he knows he’d better have my dinner on the table soon after I get home.” I knew her husband worked the night shift, so I thought it was really good of him to make sure she had a hot meal ready when she got home. Ronnie was working noon to nine, so he wasn’t even at home when I picked the kids up and got home. I’d feed the kids leftovers from Ronnie’s lunch, play with them and, later, check homework, and make sure they took their baths. By the time he got home, he only had time to play with them a little while, and then it was time for them to go to bed. During that time, I was cooking the meal that would be Ronnie’s lunch the next day, the full course meal that he ate just before he left for work. He never ate heavily at night, which was why he stayed so slim, but he could put away some food during the day. Many times, the kids would be almost asleep by the time he got home, but that was okay. It just gave him more “mommy time!”

The next woman said, “My husband cleans the house. After I spend all evening dealing with the kids, I’m not even trying to clean anything. He knows it had better be clean.” I thought about how hard it was to keep the house clean, and how sometimes I just gave up and settled for “straightened up” because I never really got to “clean”. Besides, teaching had made me a “pack rat”. I collected school supplies and all kinds of things to use in my classroom, and I hated to throw anything away that I might be able to use with my students later. I tried to picture Ronnie trying to clean all that mess up, but really couldn’t go beyond just getting him to put his clothes in the hamper to be washed. The only thing that amounted to cleaning that Ronnie did was clean out the refrigerator at the end of each week, eating all the leftovers and washing all the dishes from that cleaning. Ronnie often left work to go to work, driving a wrecker truck on-call overnight. I never expected him to clean.

The third woman talked about her husband’s love of clothes and how he meticulously did the family laundry. She said that her husband didn’t like the way she ironed, said that he did it better and faster, and told her that she could fold the clothes if she wanted to, but most of the time he didn’t let her do that either. She told him that he’d better do the laundry if it had to be perfect. She didn’t feel like it was making an unusual demand on him, even though he worked a full time job, just like she did. I sort of chuckled at the thought of having Ronnie do laundry. He did collect his uniforms, tie them in a ball, and take them to work to get them laundered. I had to hang any clothes that were not his work clothes, in the order he needed to wear them, to make sure they weren’t mix-matched. It was sort of a “garanimals” arrangement for grown-ups. I shuddered to think of the mixture of fabrics and colors the laundry would contain with Ronnie doing it.

The thing that interested me about these declarations was that, if those husbands didn’t do what they were expected to do, these wives would withhold sex. No work, no nookie. I was appalled. When did they add a “no nookie” clause to the marriage agreement? I surely didn’t know about that. In fact, I thought that was the real purpose of marriage, to be able to have sinless, legal nookie as often as you liked. At least, that was my reason for getting married. I loved Ronnie and wanted to spend be with him, but marriage wasn’t really a necessary thing, except that we both wanted to be legal… to get legal nookie. They looked at me like I was from outer space when I told them that “no nookie” would be a deal breaker for me. I told them that I got married for the free, sinless, unrestricted nookie. I asked them why they thought I put the children to bed so early, and made sure they were good and sleepy… so Ronnie and I could have some adult recreation time. Ronnie never objected, and neither did I. Now, it appears that a “nookie” clause must be added, and if it’s not, the couple agrees that there doesn’t have to be any nookie involved. Sometimes, I think the men don’t know it until after the marriage, but that is also another story.   

As I have gotten older, and have talked to married people, I see that there must be an unwritten “no nookie” clause in the marriage agreement. So many people my age and older, some who are working on second and third marriages, have amended the marriage agreement to almost totally cut out the nookie. Well, I guess that works for them, but I’m not buying into it. As I have contemplated re-marriage, I know that the “no nookie” clause will not be a part of my marriage contract. In fact, my last relationship was long distance, and it mostly worked, but two trips, months apart, that yielded no nookie, because he had gained weight and wasn’t interested in sex, made me reconsider our proposed marriage. His last trip to see me yielded no nookie either… so it was the end for me. Little did I know he was already seeing someone else, whom he eventually married, but I know that, other than some good phone sex, she ain’t getting the nookie either. Too bad for her… but glad it isn’t me.

When I talked to my “brother” (from another mother) and sister-in-law, I asked them to share the secret of their thirty-two (as of today) year, “happily having fun with each other” marriage. They both said that they like each other, they get a kick out of hanging out together, they always have something to talk about, but most of all… the nookie is still great. I rest my case.