Marriage Mirage

The way single people (especially women) view marriage can be compared to a mirage. From afar it seems as if it will fulfill all your fantasies. After years of crossing the desert of single life, marriage shimmers and beckons in the distance, promising an oasis of delights. When you finally get there, it turns out to be nothing more than another endless swathe of desert sand. I’ve been married for almost 9 years, and all I can say is: if you want water in the middle of the desert, you better be prepared to dig for it.

Thanks to my parents’ divorce, I was armed with a decent sized shovel and a pair of sand goggles, by the time I decided to get married. Other women spent vast portions of their childhood dreaming about their perfect wedding day. When I hear this, my eyes involuntarily roll back in their sockets. As a child I dreamed about doing open-heart surgery (on my science teacher), or perhaps being a rock star (so I could get fat and drunk and still be considered a hot item, like Janis Joplin). But my wedding day? Never!

My cynicism helped me circumnavigate one of the major first hurdles in any marriage: The Wedding. I skipped the whole circus of tiered cakes and puffy meringue-style wedding dresses, instead opting for a secret, minimalist affair at a magistrates’ court (just Paul and I and two cleaners working at the court, who acted as our witnesses). I’ve been to a few weddings in my life. If I had to file memories of these weddings under a single heading, I would call it “Four Weddings and an Aneurysm”.

The father of the bride usually starts taking heart medication within the first month after the engagement, as he helplessly watches money seep out of his account. The bride and her mother usually stop talking to each other right around the time when they start making decisions about flowers, dresses, cakes and invitations. Somewhere some poor sod suddenly discovers that he has an incurable stutter, just after agreeing to make a speech at the wedding.

The most ‘sacred’ marriage ritual is saved for a few nights before the wedding: the stag night and hen party (bachelor and bachelorette party). Traditionally this party was a symbolic send-off to the happy couple, a way of society honouring the sacred union they are about to enter. Today the send-off has been transformed into something of comic-tragic proportions. The men aim to get as drunk as possible, so they won’t notice how ugly the stripper is. If the groom is lucky, he walks away with a hangover and the memory of some “babe” grinding her groin in his face (the latter may cause the groom to sport Pinkeye on his wedding day). The bachelorette party generally is a pretty sad affair – the bride-to-be spends most of the evening worrying about what her man is up to at the bachelor party. The bachelor party is the cause of the first big fight in the marriage.

The wedding day is filled with pitfalls and bizarre moments. The wedding dress doesn’t fit any more; the bride and her mother have a final screaming match. The original concept of an intimate wedding with a Moroccan theme held in a unique location, is now a party for 200 people held in a school hall, where the only thing vaguely Moroccan is the faux Persian carpet in the entrance hall. At some point the DJ plays “Achy Breaky Heart” and everyone becomes an expert line-dancer. It’s soon clear that nobody knows the steps, so instead they opt for the choo-choo-train maneuver (you know, the one where they all fall in line behind each other and snake around the room). There’s always one show-off, who believes he has the makings of a great breakdancer – this is the drunken guy who does the The Worm maneuver on the ground, ending up looking like the Man from Atlantis out of water.

The real challenge starts once the wedding is over, and the married couple has to get back to real life. What used to seem so exciting and novel, now becomes mundane. Communication becomes a major challenge, as they each struggle to decipher their partner’s strange language. I pity men - they are such simple creatures with such simple needs. When they say “I’m tired”, it means “I’m tired”. When they say “I’m hungry”, it means “I’m hungry”. Women have a completely different way of expressing their needs and feelings.

Women always put emphasis on the importance of communication. What we actually mean with ‘communication’, is that we want our partner to be quiet and listen while we communicate. Occasionally our men have to say just the right thing at exactly the right time, or all hell breaks loose. Men are quick learners, and they manage to master a few basic communication skills while dating women (for purely selfish reasons, of course). Here are a few examples of what a guy might say to a girl when they start dating:
- “Can I take you out for dinner?” (What he’s really saying: “I want to have sex with you”)
- “That’s a very pretty dress” (What he’s really saying: “I want to have sex with you”)
- “I grew up in Grabouw. I have 1 sister and 2 brothers.” (What he’s really saying: “I want to have sex with you”)

Once our hero finally succeeds in bedding the heroine, another scenario follows which perfectly demonstrates the difference between men and women. The woman’s mind is going at the speed of light, analyzing and reliving every moment: “That was amazing…I wonder if he noticed that I didn’t shave my legs…I love him…I wonder if he feels the same way…he’s perfect…maybe he doesn’t like small breasts.” On and on it goes. Meanwhile our hero lies besides her thinking: “I’ve got a huge fart. I wonder if she’ll notice if I let it slip right now. Aaah, that’s better. Snore…”

Communication is most severely challenged for roughly one week out of every month. It’s the time of the month when a woman’s body is temporarily invaded by a demonic body-snatcher. It’s called PMS (Psycho Monster She-devil). Men may try to outwit this demon, but it is impossible. Whether they choose to speak, stay silent, hug her, don’t hug her, laugh, don’t laugh, whatever, they will be in trouble.

So, it’s no surprise that marriage is the challenge it is. Throw into the mix a few kids, debt, home improvements, in-laws and demanding careers, and you have a super deluxe catastrophe on your hands. Negotiating a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine is a walk in the park compared to the politics of marriage.

My advice to all would-be brides and grooms is: when you compile your wedding gift registry, be sure to add the following items to it: a pair of non-rose-tinted spectacles, a decent shovel, sand goggles, and (for wealthier guests) an earthmover. Happy digging!

Let's Play Doctor-Doctor

We’ve all been extremely ill at some time or another. It’s scary. So scary, in fact, that we will follow any advice given to us by an expert. We’ll allow strangers to touch us in ways we won’t even let our loved ones touch us. “Having problems with your colon? I have just the thing for you”, says the doctor. “Just pull down your pants, lie on your side, and I’ll stick this probe up your anus.” We nod our heads, pull down our pants, without any hesitation, and even manage a smile. Boy, this might even be fun!

I find the relationship between doctors and patients quite disconcerting. In a way, doctors remind me of clergy. We put so much faith in these mere mortals, trusting their knowledge and moral values to be of the highest standards. We’re so intimidated by religion and medicine, that we blindly accept the need for an intermediary.

It’s not as if most doctors are trying to empower patients. No, they prefer to keep the mystery alive, to keep patients in the dark, so that we will continue trusting them without question. They speak in medical jargon, more foreign to the ear than Mandarin. They point at X-rays and CT scans, using 20-letter words to explain a diagnosis, as if the patient should know exactly what they’re talking about. Meanwhile, all you see when you look at the scan is a picture not much different from a Rorschach inkblot test (Ooh, that dark spot looks just like a butterfly!).

Even their handwriting is indecipherable – medication prescriptions seem to be written in code, as if the doctor is sharing a secret with the pharmacist (Prescription: Give Ms. Smith 20 pills – just make sure they’re bitter, because then she’ll believe that they’ll cure her sinusitis. Oh, and throw in a few diet pills, because her ass is really fat).

We gratefully accept the prescription, pleased to know that all our problems will now be solved. On the way out you pass the receptionist, who hands you a bill for R500-00. The itemized bill is also written in code (ICD-10 Procedural Codes for medical aid purposes):
• 40H00Z (translation: putting up with a hypochondriac for a full 5 minutes!!)
• 67X0l0 (translation: sticking a ice cream stick in patient’s mouth and having her say “Aaaah”)
• 35L09D (translation: shining a light in patient’s ear, as it’s mandatory no matter what’s wrong with the patient)
• 683J04 (translation: an extra charge for having to breathe in the patient’s foul breath)
• 2G03T8 (translation: a little something extra, so I can add more to my kid’s university fund)

Then you drive to the nearest pharmacy to collect your placebos. Here you’re faced with one of nature’s most inexplicable phenomenon: the fact that the pharmacist is always standing on a platform and looking down on patients. Honestly, what’s up with that? The strange thing is that I have actually asked a few pharmacists about the raised platform phenomenon, and none of them could ever explain the reason for it.

Finally you get home and pop the first of many tablets. Most people leave it at that. If you’re like me, you continue to read the information sheet inside the medication package. Curiosity inevitably turns to horror when I reach the Side-Effects section. This section usually includes scary words like: hemorrhage, mania, heart failure, decreased libido, and kidney failure. So, my sinusitis will be cured, but I’ll end up being a bleeding maniac, with a marriage in ruins due to my decreased libido, while trying to pass a kidney stone. Just great! Thank heavens for the risk of heart failure – at least death will bring an end to my living hell!

I don’t even want to get into expressing my thoughts on pharmaceutical companies. Suffice it to say that the anagram for the word “Pharmaceutical” is “A malpractice, Uh!” I’ll just end my rant about the medical profession with the following food for thought: Have you ever wondered why it is that a doctor’s place of work is called a “practice”? It’s worrying, to say the least.