Sunday, January 10, 2010

The true nature of human development and marriage




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Truth be told most I have fairly recently come to realize that men are not only ignorant of the true nature of the demands of marriage but simply do not have the capacity to understand the details even when they are explained on a kindergarten level. Which begs the question how did men get this way?
Well in my opinion it probably started while our ancestors still lived in trees. In actuality I think it was the women evolving the bigger brains and they simply got tired of the persistently lazy guys swinging around enjoying the first true sport of throwing handfuls of poop at each other, like Howler monkeys do even now, and getting a buzz from eating overripe fruit. At some point the ladies rebelled and pushed us out of the trees demanding that we stop throwing poop and help with the babies. Men being as stupid as they are didn’t have the sense to climb back up in the tree at night and instead went off romping through the jungle. Given such clueless behavior, the first predator we chanced upon unimpressed with our poop throwing tactics would have quickly made us a light snack. Thankfully, the females climbed down looking for us and forced us into caves. That I believe was due less for their concern for the stupid, roving males and more for their love of living space with far more square-footage.
Now living in caves only postponed any solution to the original problem. Instead of being lazy and shiftless in trees, our primitive ancestors were being lazy and shiftless on the ground. But at least we guys were not throwing poop anymore, which the ladies saw as a small improvement, and by the time fire and spears were invented the females could just send us off to hunt.
Of course advancement eventually had our species move into houses but while you may be able to take the monkey out of the trees he is still a lazy bum. Because instead of sending us guys out to hunt we now bought our food from grocery stores allowing us to stay home and watch our new favorite sports of football, baseball, ladies beach volleyball, and bass fishing tournaments while drinking beer all day. Given the lack of poop splatter and smell to contend with you would think the females would be happy but the ease and convenience of our new civilized behavior exacerbated our old issues. After centuries of dealing with the shiftless hordes the ladies had finally had enough and decided that action must be taken. Luckily, for us guys at least a small number of them felt that we had a few useful talents and along with the basic need for reproduction to continue the species decided to try to teach us some basic skills.
The most convenient avenue to accomplish such a task was of course to lull us less advanced members of the species into a false sense of bliss and security and once the marriage ceremony was over bring the hammer down at some point and force us knuckle dragging brutes into some sort of civilized behavior. That in the nutshell is it folks, marriage is less a commitment of love between two people but more a continuation of a million year old battle to get us guys to help around the tree, cave, or house.
Like most marriages the opening skirmishes for me started out all warm and fuzzy with my wife and me calling each other by cute nicknames, holding hands all the time, and seeing each others faults as cute endearing traits. Our first year together we lived in a small one bedroom apartment whose total living space in square footage was not much above a large walk-in closet found in many of the upper scale McMansions these days. But as a newlywed couple the close confines were thought of as “cozy” offer both certain challenges and advantages.
Meals were a tag team event with one person preparing one portion of the coming meal then handing off to the other for something else to be done. Being newly married our joint meal preparations were all most entirely dishing out the take-home Chinese or the pizza that we had delivered. Cleaning was not much of an issue since like all walk-in closets a quick couple of passes with a vacuum and the carpet was clean. The bathroom and kitchen could be tackled separately very quickly, especially since they were almost too small for more than one person to occupy at one time.
As far as the advantages to a small apartment, a young couple can find more than a few interesting and frankly unusual places for clothing optional “exercises.” Although, just from my own personal experience those types of exercises performed on the attached small patio, even very late at night, tend to have negative effects on the neighbors no matter how much fun you all may be having.
But like all good things the false sense of bliss and security soon ended when we moved into our first house and my wife brought the hammer down and began training me in earnest, with admittedly mixed results.
Those short-term issues like home improvements and lawn care didn’t take too much time. While the reasons for changing out things like light fixtures, wallpaper, and paintings may escape me I have long since learned to go with the flow. My training has even developed to the point that when I’m asked for my opinion on the replacements I know the subtle and unconscious gestures my wife uses to signify which ones she prefers. My ancient ancestors may have been poop-throwing monkeys but only a single cell amoeba would actually be dumb enough to voice his honest opinion on such abstract questions.
The long-term stuff involved learning to cook something other than microwaveable pizzas for dinner, lessons in the evils of dust and soap scum, and why dirty clothes belong in the laundry hamper and not piled in a corner of the bedroom. Over time I actually learned to cook some decent meals that while are not gourmet in any sense are at least a little more complex than hamburger helper. Repeated lessons have actually taught me the benefits of dusting although I still haven’t figured out why soap scum is so hated by women. Now if there is one thing I have mastered its laundry, I can have all the clothes divided into proper categories, washed, and folded long before my wife has any idea the chore needed to be done.
While there has been some successes in my wife’s attempt to civilize me there have been some failures. The cap on the toothpaste thing is still troublesome and a cause for discord. I have no idea why this should be an issue, it’s not like the toothpaste will run out of an open tube.
Putting a new roll of toilet paper on the holder when the only thing left is the cardboard cylinder is a rather important thing for my wife. This failure I blame on my upbringing. We poor country folk just set the new roll of toilet paper on the toilet lid resting atop a small pile of magazines available for anyone to read while they go about their natural business. Remarkably, even that habit is something my wife has tried to break me of since we were married.
However, if there is one thing that drives my wife crazy is my unbreakable habit of leaving the toilet seat up. After years of training trying to get me to raise the seat for my business and then to lower it once I’m done even now there are times when my primitive brain fails me.
Just this last Christmas Eve when not a creature was stirring and my wife and I had finished settling our yearly account with Santa we made our way to bed. I had worked the night before and had not slept any during Christmas Eve day keeping the kids busy. My wife had spent the day preparing for Christmas dinner and dealing with the added complications brought on by her folks calling up and saying they were coming to our house after all instead of driving up to Richmond to be with their other daughter.
While I dozed off rather quickly I still heard her get up and in the darkness amble to the bathroom. Seconds later, once I heard the subdued splash of her falling the extra couple of inches in the porcelain bowl. Instantly I was wide-awake realizing that I had left the seat up again. The muffled grumbles that I heard before she came back out was nothing compared to the lecture I got as she crawled back into bed.
I had no excuse; all I could do was agree to my horrendous actions and my total lack of common decency. After a few minutes I turned over and let her anger slowly fade as we both drifted off to sleep. Before I was completely lost to sleep I did hear one more thing that got me to wondering about the whole nature of men, women and marriage in general.
“It would be far easier to teach a monkey to put the seat down after he’s done.” She said fading off to sleep.
Millions of years of human advancement and it always boils back down to the sins of our monkey ancestors who first jump down from the trees. Sort of make me wonder why we ever gave up poop throwing.

25 comments:

David Barber said...

BB,

We are totally f****d whatever we do. I took the wrong snow boots to school the other day for my daughter (on my birthday) and got a bollocking for it. The wife should have took them herself, while I was throwing poop at her!!

We will never win!

Thanks for the comment on my contest entry, David.

David Barber said...

By the way,

You write these post so well....why are you not doing FFF, or even sending your writing to other sites?

You have a great voice BB. Enough said.

Pammy said...

Hehe...Ziggy pointed this out to me early on in our relationship. If he was gentleman enough to raise the seat before letting go a whiz, I surely could put it down before doing the same. If I didn't want him to be a gentleman, then he'd gladly just pee on the seat.

Gotta admit...he had a point.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Hannity, Olbermann, Limbaugh, etc. - they apparently didn't get the memo about no more poop throwing, not even a little, my friend.....Excellent insights into the evolutionary (or not LOL) process, btw.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Favorite line? "getting a buzz from eating overripe fruit." Probably accurate, too.

Marja said...

Hilarious you are a comedian but on a serious note I'll sign this You are totally right about how things work and BTW do you have to time to write so much shouldn't you be doing the dishes? lol

Commander Zaius said...

David: Yeah, been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Just this Saturday I went to the grocery store to do my wife a favor. One of the things she wanted me to pick up was some new diet/nutritional drink she likes. The list she wrote out only said to pick up the brand name, not the flavor. So I bought the flavor I had seen in the refrigerator, carrot juice. Got home and she stormed into the family room about an hour later when I was trying to write and gave me a bollocking for getting the wrong flavor. She wanted kiwi and low and behold on the opposite side of the list she showed me where she had written down that fact. Now the list only took up 2/3rd of the sheet of paper and I don't remember her saying anything about checking the other side. Like you said, we never win.

Everything was so crazy this weekend I barely had time to write this post. I started it Friday afternoon and barely got in done Sunday afternoon when I finally told everyone to bugger off.

The situation is changing though and I should (hope actually) have more time soon and I will get back into doing FFF, if Cormac will let me.

Pammy: I brought that up one time but it didn't go so well. My Southern upbringing tells me I have to be the gentleman but my monkey nature causes me to fail. It’s an evolutionary puzzle.

Will: Way back when my mom and uncles were still kids the men folk, my grandfather and his brothers, in the family would often ride off during family functions "to get a dog". They would return hours later drunker than skunks with my grandmother and my great-uncle's wives madder than any wet hen could possibly be.

Such activities lasted until I was finally able to join in the fun. I thought about those days and how it fit so well in my post that I broke out both laughing and almost crying for those now lost times.

As for "eating the overripe fruit" saw a nature show about some monkeys that did just that and got about as drunk as any human could.

Marja: All I can say is thank God for automatic dishwashers. If not for them I would not have any time to write at all.

Middle Ditch said...

Hahaha .... you sound soooo like my husband who forever leaves the seat up. BUT he does the ironing so I forgive him.

Hilarious post

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

My friend John solved this dilemma by marrying a woman with a real big butt. The seat stays up at home and John only does #2 at work so he can be paid for what he does best.

Laura said...

Ahhhh Beach... that was hilarious.
;P

I think the only thing my husband does that bugs the crap out of me is that he leaves cupboard door open all the time. That drives me insane.
Other than that .. I don't sweat the small stuff.


As for the toilet seat issue. Well, Gabby and I are out numbered here so .. we just check before sitting down. Needless to say.. I've landed in the drink a time or two myself in the middle of the night. :P

((Hugs))
Laura

Unknown said...

Hiya Beach,

Thought you might like this film (about you...) Watch it; kinda tedious at the beginning but does get exciting towards the middle, etc.


Thanking a Hero: Beach Bum

goatman said...

Or you could sit on the seat ----
problem solved!!

(you don't have to prove yourself all of the time, especially when you are alone.)

lime said...

ok, on the toilet seat issue...

BOTH genders should close the whole thing before flushing, because seriously, who wants all the fecal matter sprayed all over the toothbrushes when you flush.

am i the only one highly evolved enough not to want poop flung even in the mists of toilet bowl water?

Kentucky Rain said...

Truth: LOL LOL LOL!

Great job Beach but then again that is what we have come to expect of you. I guess you know what that means.... :-)

Commander Zaius said...

Middle Ditch: I tired ironing once cause my wife was late for an important meeting and she needed help getting ready. I did such a good job that she suddenly got sick and had to miss the meeting. She has never asked me to iron again.

Truth 101: LOL!!! Actually I like to do "number two" at work myself for the same reason. I'm sorry, I'll add you to my blogroll tonight, should have done it sooner.

Sunshine: The cabinet door thing bugs my mother-in-law who will shut the cabinet doors while I'm unloading the dishwasher.

Hill: LOL!!!! Now that all the world has realized my greatness I declare that all people should go barefoot, take the next two weeks off, drink and have sex with beautiful women. I'm also imposing a global tax of twenty percent that will go directly to my account. Oh yeah, Cheney and his daughter are to be taken into custody and waterboarded until the believe they are Yoga Bear and BooBoo.

Goatman: LOL!!!! Since I read a lot on the toilet I have to sit and it cuts down on the problem on its on.

Lime: I never realized that! So we never ended our poop flinging after all. What a minute, that also means I'll have to move the cat since he loves watching the toilet flush.

Madmike: Just view the video attached to Hill's comment and pony up the twenty percent. ;P

Kentucky Rain said...

NO WAY!!!!!!!! We will never hear the end of this. We are doomed. The bigger question of course is "how did he do dat?" Sighhhhhhhhh....

Jack Jodell said...

Beach Bum,
Thank you for this absolutely hilarious and insightful post. You really should submit this to your local newspaper for publication. It's THAT good!

BTW, you're mentioned twice in my next post, which should appear tomorrow afternoon. Thank you for the inspiration, my friend! I'LL never throw poop at YOU! :-)

Kentucky Rain said...

LOL Jack!!

Keshi said...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! @poop-throwing!

U made me crack up reading this post BB. :) tnxx for the laughs!!

Keshi.

Randal Graves said...

I'd love to comment, but I have to work on my fantasy league, surf for porn and pour another cold one.

SJ said...

@Beach,
I'm all out of poop, so I'll just say great post.

I reminds me of an argument I overheard my grandmother and grandfather having when I was about 10 years old in the Dominican Republic:

She said:
"It's like you dense motherf*ckers can't hear a woman when she's talking right at you!"

He replied:
"Oh we hear you, we just don't listen."

How my grandfather walked away from that dust up alive? -I'll never know.
No howler monkeys came to his defense.
-SJ

C.J. said...

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! This is a great essay! But in my domestic partnership, the grump prefers a clean house and I can live with soap scum, unmopped floors, etc, for much longer than he can. So he is usually the one bitching at me to clean more. When we were dating, he once commented on my kitchen floor needing to be mopped. So I went and got the mop and bucket and handed it to him, with "better get to it. the dirty floor doesn't bother me". He mopped the floor and learned to keep his mouth shut.

But I don't let him near the laundry (he shrinks it) and I could not possibly care less about the toilet paper roll, although the seat up thing is really a pain in the ass (sometimes literally!).

C.J. said...

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! This is a great essay! But in my domestic partnership, the grump prefers a clean house and I can live with soap scum, unmopped floors, etc, for much longer than he can. So he is usually the one bitching at me to clean more. When we were dating, he once commented on my kitchen floor needing to be mopped. So I went and got the mop and bucket and handed it to him, with "better get to it. the dirty floor doesn't bother me". He mopped the floor and learned to keep his mouth shut.

But I don't let him near the laundry (he shrinks it) and I could not possibly care less about the toilet paper roll, although the seat up thing is really a pain in the ass (sometimes literally!).

Me said...

BWAHHAHAHHAHHAHAAAA!

Hilarious post, Beach.

Perfectly describes the fun (seriously) and the malaise of marriage.

:)

Commander Zaius said...

Madmike: I'm unsure but he did one for Tomcat as well.

Keshi: I did my best. How are things in Sidney?

Randal: From my own personal experience I have found that "Nair lotion" does a great job of removing the hair from my hand. Just something to remember while you watch porn.

SJ: You know I think something similar has been said to me by my wife many times, I just don't listen.

CJ: I actually mop the floors as well. And you know I enjoy it, I can put on my headphones and listen to music and all is right with the world.

Hill: Yeah, marriage is a strange journey. I could say what kind of journey but I'll just leave that for another day.