|
|
Side |
|
|
Return to Current IPS Features
|
I
told my hubby a long time ago that if he has the bad taste to up and die
on me, I am going for money the next time. As I expressed it at the time
of this great revelation, "I married for love once, and I already
know what that is like; I'd like to see what it is like to be rolling in
the dough, next time around."
He took it pretty well. I guess because he'd be dead and all, there
wasn't a lot he had to say on the matter.
As for me, I always assumed that should I have an untimely demise, my
husband would foil over the windows, cut himself off from civilization,
and spend his remaining days writing testimonies to his great undying
love for me, his poor dead wifey. Until
a few months ago when my husband came back from a bike ride with a great
revelation. "I was looking at my watch," he said, pointing to
the Seiko his parents bought him upon his high school graduation 25
years ago, "and decided that if you should ever die, I would not
date/marry anyone younger than the watch." He looked at me
proudly.What the?! "Your watch is TWENTY FIVE YEARS OLD!" I
screeched. "Are you telling me that you are going to date twenty
five year olds?!!!!! Are you out of your MIND?" "No
one YOUNGER than twenty five." He clarified, as if this was going
to make a huge difference. "And,"
my oldest son seemed to grasp the "watch rule" logic very
quickly, "the watch will continue to get older. So if you die
later, the watch may be forty years old." "But
your father," I shot back, "will still be EIGHTEEN YEARS older
than the watch. That watch is way too young for your dad." I was
hissing, steaming mad. "You
are always telling me that if I die," my husband reminded me,
"you are going to marry for money." "Well,
yeah, because I've already had the great love of my life, so what else
is there to look forward to?" My
hubby wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively. "That's what I am
talking about." "You,"
I shouted, "are a sick, sick man. I am not even going to sleep with
my old rich husband, and I don't even want to THINK ABOUT what you are
suggesting." "Tell
it to your dad and his twenty five year old wife!" I responded.
"Why can't you say that you won't date/marry anyone younger than I
would be if I were alive?" "GEEZERS
LIKE ME!????" I yelled. "You don't want to say, 'I will only
date old, dried up geezers like my dead wife?!" I was taking this
very personally. I had always thought that the man would be unable to
move forward with his life; to pick up the shattered remains of dreams
we had shared, should I die, and now I was quickly discovering that not
only was he going to MOVE ON, but he was going to do it with someone
potentially eighteen years his junior! The NERVE of the man. "Most
forty one year olds don't look like you." He said, in a
reconciliatory manner, "and so I would probably have to date a
twenty five year old to find someone even remotely at your level. You've
spoiled me." He said, looking pleased with himself, and possibly
thinking (errantly) that I was going to buy this big old bag of baloney. "I
thought that if you really loved someone; you would want them to be
happy always." He said. (I think the got that line of crap from a
book somewhere; surely he had to be kidding.) "I
do want you to be happy, honey." I said, "And that is why I
will not die first." No way was I going to give him the
satisfaction of dating someone as young as his watch; not even if
it means living to 120.
|
