Catching the Odd Fish

“He's an absolute lunatic!” My mother squealed to no one in particular. 

“I don't know where she found him but she ought to put him back.” My Aunt stated matter of factly.

They both were referring to my husband, Marv, who was puttering around outside with goggles on his face and sporting a very unusual spandex get up. He had all the appearances of a Christopher Lloyd doppelganger. That was even before he blew up the barn. 

You see most women fall for hunks or Prince Charming types but I was never attracted to either. They didn't amuse me or as Shania Twain once crooned “Don't impress me much”. What are good looks when one day your old and fat or shriveled up like a prune. Prince Charming is always charming all the ladies, I didn't care to share my special someone with all the ladies.

I dated a few of the fashionable types and found them rude or worse! Personality of burnt toast. Marv has an overabundance of personality and he never hit me like some of the pretty boys do. I still see Cynthia, from time to time, at the Piggly Wiggly sporting her proverbial sunglasses. The overly large and heavily tinted ones to cover her occasional black eye gifted by the one that got away. I personally Thank God daily that he got away! He gave me two of those black eyes and I had enough umpf to leave him high and dry and wondering why at the end ofl our Senior year. My mother still laments the loss of old money and good family breeding but then she doesn't have to wear the overly large heavily tinted sunglasses.  

Another one that got away was a real Don Juan type He didn't so much get away as I threw him back in the sea! Swim fishy, swim. Don't come back again. He was great looking, I’ll give him that. Too good for his own good. He'd slept with my college roommate, Miss Louisa County. The night we broke up some Co-ed had stuck her room key down his pants at a local bar and he ended up with some flexible Hawkeye cheerleader to soothe his unhappy soul after my tearful farewell. The insult sticks to this day, “But Babe you’re the marrying kind and I have wild oats to sow.”

I met Marv at a Science Fiction convention in Rosemont IL. My friend Sally kept shaking her head every time he Beelined right to us but I didn't mind one bit. He was a bit Blue, literally! As he attended daily in costume as a Romulan. At the time I was too self conscious to dress up myself and envied him his freedom and commitment to being himself. It's just not something normal people would understand. 

Marv could talk! Conversation from the male persuasion is limited and in decline. Sally didn't like it at all. Sally married a silent man. Too silent as it turned out. I still remember the funeral. Closed casket, of course. He'd used his own shotgun, now that is a true testament to marital bliss. Sally herself is silent on the subject, only the pained expressions she gives whenever we shop at True Value are expressive. Marv will be expounding on some topic from garden gnomes to backyard BBQ pits and out of the corner of my eye I’ll see Sally’s disapproving glare.

 I think strong and silent is nowhere near as wonderful as listening to someone dream out loud about shooting stars, gold rushes and whether Cardinals are really Angels in disguise. Listening back as your significant other participates in the conversation is ten times better than being seated at an antique oak dining table set with fine China for 8 and an awkward silence as an aperitif but it just isn't done in the right circles. That's why I like to be anomalous. Normal is overrated.

I'm not entirely sure how normal people do it. I mean conforming to societal check lists of what is right and proper. My mother not Marv deserves all the credit for my abnormalities in this area but she would deny that to her very last day on Earth! My mother was most unhappily married and frequently claimed my Dad had been different before the marriage. I don't believe her. My Dad was consistently obnoxious and didn't have a romantic bone in his body. He was unmotivated in any aptitude of making any woman remotely happy including myself, whether you are a wife or a daughter Women were on earth to serve men like him. The end. Kaput. Not open for discussion. My mother found solace in things. Her house. Her car. Her antiques. Money may not buy happiness but it can preoccupy an unhappy person for an indeterminate length of time until they die. 

My Dad eventually forgot I existed since I didn't meet with his approval either. Daughters who prefer nature walks and poetry were not on the checklist. I have a particular memory in mind when in which it was clearly defined that I didn't meet preconceived expectations. My father going off about me not participating as a family member and when I asked for clarification on the subject he said I could start by doing the dishes and the laundry. The man wanted a housekeeper not a daughter. Can't you just take me fishing? No, we must preserve the gender roles echoed the sentiment of my childhood.  

I didn't have many happy marriage role models to use in my matrimonial quest. My grandparents had separate rooms on opposite sides of the house. I still remember as a child watching the show “Family Ties”, in a particular episode the character of Elyse Keaton, an architect, was designing a house for a married couple who wanted to divide the house in two with a his side and a her side and a wall down the middle. One of my visiting college professors introduced himself to my poli-sci class by stating that he and his wife preferred to live in different states. I didn't want that. A distance between us. I think I already had that with everyone else. I just wanted someone to value me like I value them. Eccentricities and all. My grandmother had other values as the day grandpa died she chucked all his belongings in a dust bin and moved to Phoenix, AZ to live with a distant cousin.

 I was lucky to find Marv so many women don't find the one that makes them happy and instead settle for the one their family and friends approve of. Absolutely not one approved of Marv! At least I have the consolation of knowing none of them will be trying to steal him away. More the pity because I found a real gem amongst a ton of fool's gold. Maybe we are not rich and I can't distracted myself for 40 years by shopping but I watch the Cardinals outside my comfortable windows and know that I made the right decision. 

Someone to make me laugh when the skies are cloudy. Someone to help me not be serious and caught up in the wheels of life. Someone who tells me tall tales in order to explain why it took three fire departments to put out the flames on our barn. “Well honey it was like this…” That's priceless.