BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Part 5 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: So I Have This Idea…

…And I’m, gonna get maie air air reed…

Okay, old song reference, I know. I’ll stop singing now.

Unfortunately, Tom Hanks wasn’t available for my bachelor party… He was busy building his career as I was preparing to embark upon this odyssey.  But, that really didn’t matter. Given that at that point in history we weren’t on speaking terms – and we aren’t right now either, for that matter ,(probably because we’ve never met), I figured I’d just find someone else to arrange the entertainment.

But, let me back up a second…

In the last blog, E K finally said yes to the big question. While you would think that I would have jumped up and run around the room screaming, “She said YES! She said YES! WooHoo, she said YES!” – a very logical assumption given the circumstances, mind you – the reality is, I didn’t. Truth be told, it took something on the order of 30 seconds, maybe even a full minute for it to sink in that she had given me an answer that was vastly different, and diametrically opposed to the one she had been giving me to date.

Now I had a problem. No ring. Yeah, back when I had originally broached the subject I didn’t have one either… I had just been winging it. Given the answers I had been getting, I hadn’t been in a hurry to go purchase one either… Fortunately, my frugal live-in girlfriend turned fiancee didn’t mind. I think that just for grins we ended up using a cable tie, or piece of string, or something innocuous that was laying around the shop at the time. I doubt she even has it anymore because she’s nowhere near as sentimental as me, but watch her read this blog and prove me wrong. If she does, I’ll be sure to let everyone know…

(Just as an aside, for the record, a few years later when things were no longer so tight, I saw to it that she received a full blown engagement/wedding set with as much gold and as many sparkly rocks as I could manage in a tasteful ring…)

At any rate, now a snowball began rolling downhill, and it just kept growing…

For one thing, we made arrangements to take E K’s parents to dinner, whereupon I asked her father if it would be okay for me to marry his daughter. Yeah, I know, old fashioned, but even though it seemed to surprise him I think he appreciated the gesture.

Then, we were in the middle of buying the house, which as noted in the first of this blog series, was a fixer-upper from hell. I suppose we were just in such a hurry to get out of the duplex – not because it was a bad place, mind you. Not at all. In fact, it was actually very nice, and the landlord was a great guy too. You see, it’s just that the lease had a “verbal-handshake” rider saying no pets.

I can see the question marks now… Yeah, Kathy’s cats… explain that one, Murv…

Well, you see, we had signed the lease on the duplex and were in the middle of shaking hands when the landlord said, “Oh, I forgot to ask, you don’t have any pets do you? Because, they aren’t allowed…”

At this point, E K and I simply looked at one another then turned to him and lied through our teeth. We had been looking for an apartment for what seemed like forever, and this was the first one in our price range that hadn’t rejected our application due to my rocky credit history and hers as well – you see, she wasn’t delinquent on anything, but having been married and at that point not officially divorced just yet, her name was tied to her ex-husband’s debts, which made it look like she owed way too much to way too many folks to be able to afford an apartment.

So, re-acquiring the earlier thread – we bought ourselves a fixer upper. Being twenty-somethings, giddy in love, and in a hurry to get out of an apartment before we had to sign another year long lease, we probably didn’t inspect things quite as closely as we should – and, by the same token, probably paid far more for the house than it was worth, which is most likely why they accepted our offer immediately with no qualms whatsoever… But, oh well, live and learn…

Here’s the thing – we had set the date for our wedding to be October 31. Halloween. Samhain. Not the traditional sort of date, but hey, given that on that night the veil between the worlds is said to be at its thinnest, relatives and friends who had already gone over to the other side (i.e. croaked) would find it much easier to attend… Hey, works for me.

At this point, all manner of things were in motion – for one, we were beginning to wonder if we were going to have to postpone the wedding for legal reasons. It seems the attorney handling E K’s divorce had been ditzing about, and while it was one of those uncontested, sign on the dotted line, thank you very much, goodbye sort of divorces, the legal eagle had been postponing and postponing getting the paperwork filed. She seemed to have a bit of a procrastination issue. Rule number 1, never use an attorney who advertises in the TV guide. Yeah, I’m not kidding… But, in this case it wasn’t EK’s “frugalness” to blame, it was the ex-husband’s militant stinginess. There’s a huge difference… But, I digress… The thing here being, in the state of Missouri you have to be  legally divorced for X number of days, (I can’t remember the actual number), before you can remarry. Or at least at that time, (back in the dark ages), that’s the way it was. I’m not sure what the statutes are these days.

Fortunately, the procrastinating mouthpiece finally got off the pot , or sh*t, or whatever she needed to do that she had actually already been paid to do.   The old marriage was dissolved and we ended up meeting the deadline with something on the order of 3 days to spare. So, that was all good.

Now came the new money issues… Obviously, since Kathy had been married before her parents weren’t going to pop for a wedding, even if they could have afforded it, so it was all on us. And, we had just bought a house, so we weren’t exactly flush with excess cash. We looked at halls, and even hotel suites, to rent for a reception but just couldn’t hammer them into our budget, no matter how hard we tried or which corners we cut. So, we finally made a decision… We would pour our limited funds into fixing up the house as best we could in the interim, buy some food, and have the wedding right there in the living room…

Yeah. Stupid eh? Well, we were young. Give us a break.

The problem we faced now is that by the time we reached this decision and had officially closed on the house, we only had about 30 days to make this happen. Somehow we did… (Remind me to tell you sometime about running a floor sander for hours on end…)

Of course, in the pictures you will see over the next few installments, it is obvious that things are woefully unfinished – no baseboards, partially sanded woodwork, and don’t even get me started on the kitchen, which remained untouched as far as remodeling for a few years. We were concentrating on the living room and dining room, since that was where things were to take place. The rest was, unfortunately, temporary storage for the time being…

So, where did this leave us? Obviously planning a wedding and reception, but it also left us being our own caterers as well. And, being the eclectic, bizarre folks we are, we didn’t want all the traditional wedding food one has , in Saint Louis, at least.  That being tasteless roast beef, baked mostaccioli, and green beans almandine. No, we just had to be different. Therefore, our menu ended up consisting of a spiral cut Honey Baked Ham® from none other than the Honey Baked Ham® company themselves. In addition, we also served veal parmigiana, and apple-rice curry. Erin, remember Erin from ComputerTrend, the busty blonde? Well, Erin’s husband was actually a restaurant manager at a local country club so he loaned us some extra chafing dishes they had laying about, which was a huge help. With that, we were almost finished with the menu save for several large boxes of assorted heat and serve hors d’oeuvres, also purchased from HBH… When we placed that order the guy at the counter called into the back, “I need x y number of boxes of Whores Duh-Vores…” E K had plenty of fun with that…

We ordered up a keg of beer,  and I even picked up everything I needed to make sauce for the veal patties. We should have been set, but we weren’t…

My dad dropped by for a visit and asked how things were going. Beaming, we told him all was good, and outlined the menu choices. He nodded, grunted, then asked, “So what kind of cake are you getting?”

Kathy and I looked at one another. Then we looked at him. Then we looked at one another again.

I said, “Uhm…uhh…”

Kathy said, “I guess we aren’t. We can’t afford one.”

My father raised an eyebrow, then snorted and said, “Bullshit. You can’t get married without a cake.”

With that, he reached into his wallet and withdrew a 100 dollar bill and handed it to Kat while adding, “Let me know if it costs more.”

And so, we went “cake shopping”… This was new to me. Even with all my experience with restaurants and diners, (on my mother’s side of the family) , I had never been all about the baking end of things… So, I did what any self-respecting man should do… I gave in to whatever E K wanted, listened closely so that if she needed help making a decision I chose whatever it sounded like she was leaning toward, and voila… We had a cake…

At this point all of the guys reading this are probably doing a rundown – “Lemme see… ya’ got ham, ya’ got beer, ya’ got cake… Yep, we’re good.”

If I had to guess, however, I’d say you women readers are most likely all pretty antsy at this point. I suspect – though I may be wrong – that you’re probably dancing around in your seats, shaking your fingers at the screen, and muttering, “But… but… but… what about… but…“

Do you mean, “What about The Dress?”

Yeah, I figured as much.

So, yeah… We also had to go wedding dress shopping. Yet another new experience for me, especially since I was wholly unaware that the groom was in any way involved in the selection of the dress.

Okay… We’ve established that this wasn’t Kat’s first rodeo. In addition to that, our house isn’t all that big, (i.e. no room for a 90 foot long train), and we were out of money. Also, while she can be as girly girl as the next woman, she isn’t all about too much foo-feraw…

And so, we went wedding dress shopping at… wait for it… Kmart®. Yeah, “Definitely Kmart, definitely definitely definitely Kmart…” I think I might have even picked up a 3 pack of tighty-whities while we were there.

Now, before you ladies get together a mob to come after me, it wasn’t my idea. It was Kathy’s. But, let me tell you something, she picked out an incredible dress and couldn’t have looked any better in my opinion, and it came in at around 40 bucks. She already had a brand new pair of white heels, so no new shoes were needed in her estimation. See what I mean about her being frugal? Yeah… it amazes me too…

So… Now were were set. She had a dress, we had a menu, the polyurethane was dry on the newly refinished hardwood floors, and we even had rings… we’ll get to those in a bit. My best buddy, Scott Ruddle, (after whom Detective Benjamin Storm in the RGI novels is modeled), was tapped to be my best man, and Erin (remember Erin?) was to be Kathy’s Matron of Honor. We had a license, and we even had a preacher – Kathy’s father, who is a Baptist Minister…

The day was fast approaching, and little did we know all hell was about to break loose…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: Mobile Bachelor Party…

Part 4 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Money I Don’t Have…

I am always fascinated by the Hallmark Channel™ movies, and even some of the bizarre shows on network TV, when some man spares no expense to have his marriage proposal scrawled across the blue by a skywriter in a biplane, or flashed up on the scoreboard at a major league baseball game, or plastered across a billboard along I-pick a number… Hell, I am even fascinated by the “froot loops” who “pop the question” in front of 137 1/2 people at a high society party with mom, dad, sister, brother, extended cousins, BFF’s, and old ex-boyfriends who aren’t yet over the breakup even though it happened 4 years ago, all in attendance. (I have no idea where that half-person came from… it’s just one of those things. Maybe it’s one of the ex-boyfriends who was emasculated by the Femme Fatale in question ala Dead Men blah blah Plaid… see previous blog or reference later in this entry.)

Every single time I see this depicted, whether in real life or in a fictional setting, I cringe. I mean, CRINGE. Portions of my anatomy actually retreat to safety just as they would in response to frigid water, if you get my meaning. The hairs on my neck prickle, my stomach churns,  butterflies race up and down my esophagus, and I just can’t even bring myself to look because I am so preemptively embarrassed for the idiot. The first coherent thing that goes through my mind is, “You friggin’ moron! What if she says no? Did you even bother to think this through before you opened your pie hole?”

In my way of thinking, it’s just like what Scout, the nine year old narrator of To Kill A Mockingbird, tells the reader with regard to her father, Addicus Finch’s dictum regarding the cross examination of a witness in court: Never ask a witness a question that you don’t already know how they will answer, because you are liable to get a response you don’t necessarily want. That isn’t a direct quote by any means, but it’s close enough. (BTW, if you’ve never read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I highly recommend that you do so, but, then, I am all about reading so…’nuff said, I suppose… Just be warned that the language is dated, regional, and is virtually guaranteed to be offensive if taken out of the context of the story and its time period…)

But, of course, I am diverging from the topic as I usually do. We were discussing this whole marriage proposal thing… So, anyway, I think I have established that I believe these “public proposers” are a half step the other side of being brain dead. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion, and we know the old adage that can be applied there.

Still, since that is my particular take on the subject, when those first few months together had gone by like a lazy stream beneath a bridge, well, to be honest there were a few rough patches of whitewater, but we managed to stay dry, and I decided to ask E K the “big question”, I was tickled to death with myself that I had elected to do so in our living room with no one in attendance save me, her, and three cats.

Why? Because she said, “No” of course.

You heard me. No music came up. No deep, passionate kiss. No I love you’s , (not that we didn’t pass those back and forth regularly, because we did.) There were no fireworks, no doves flying off into the sky,  no sparklies, no  gasps, no tears, no butterflies. Hell, there wasn’t even a housefly… Of course, it was the middle of Winter, so I guess I wasn’t all that surprised by the lack of houseflies… But, my point here is, she simply said, “No.”

Now, to be fair, I suppose I need to expand on this just a bit. While she said, “no”, it certainly wasn’t an unequivocal, resounding, “you gotta be freakin’ kiddin’ me… No way in hell you dipsh*t!” sort of no. She didn’t hit me, she didn’t run screaming from the room, she didn’t pack a bag and head for the state line. In fact, she didn’t even laugh at me, which was a good thing in my estimation. What she did was give me a “qualified no.”

By “qualified no” I mean it went something like, “No, not right now.”

Well, while it certainly wasn’t the happy-happy joy-joy moment I had been hoping for, at least it wasn’t the whole Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid line about stiletto stomped roasted chopped man heart on toast… Not at all. In fact, it left the door open just a bit. Granted, it was just a crack, but as far as I was concerned, so long as the door wasn’t slammed and double bolted in my face, there was still a chance.

So, of course, trying to stay on honest, even ground with her, I told her of my intentions… “You know I’m going to ask again, correct?” I said.

“Yes,” was her simple response.

Now, I suppose I could have been a comedian and asked her again right then and there, but I already knew what the answer would be. And, more than that, I didn’t want to annoy her any more than I already was.

“Already was?” you ask…

Of course. We had only been living together for a few months, and dating for a few months before that, even though I had been head over heels  in love with her for better than a year. Truth be told, she was annoying me too. It’s all part of the game, and why I highly recommend… No, not another literary work, although there’s this Sellars guy who writes damn good paranormal thrillers if you are interested… No… What I recommend is living together a while before filing all that legal paperwork that causes courts and lawyers to get involved when it comes to divvying up stuff if things don’t work out.

What I am saying here is that, much to my chagrin, the love of my life had habits that got on my nerves. Nothing crazy and out there on a limb like giving hamsters Mohawks and leaving the hair laying about in the living room or  sleeping upside down in the bed with cottage cheese in her socks. No, nothing like that. Just little things. The normal everyday stuff.  The things a person does one way that another person does a different way… That sort of “thing”. And, I knew damn well I was doing the same to her. When you get two folks under the same roof there is a period of adjustment… It’s all part of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. But,  as much as we were getting on one another’s nerves, we were also working through it and reaching a middle. Adjusting our patterns and coming to a relationship equilibrium. And, just so you know, that equilibrium is never fully reached… But, you do get closer with each passing year, and things just don’t bother you near as much any longer.

Hence, the reason I didn’t ask again just yet. I waited, bided my time, and about every thirty days when things were going well and happiness was in full bloom, I would “pop the question”. Now, don’t try to read anything into my timing. I wasn’t matching it up to her particular rhythm with the lunar cycle or anything like that. I didn’t base my selection of the day to ask on whether or not I saw a box of feminine hygiene products sitting on the counter in the bathroom… Go on, admit it, that’s what you were thinking, I would have. The reality is I simply figured once a month was frequent enough to keep it in her mind, but not so frequent as to be overly annoying. Just a little annoying.

At any rate, each time I asked I made sure it was in a private setting, and each time I asked I received the same answer – “No, not right now.”

“You know I’ll ask again, right?”

“Yes.”

And on we went… And as we went, I became complacent and jaded about the question. I would ask, but I always knew the answer before I even uttered the words.

Still, as the months rolled on I sucked it up and sallied forth each time. (no, not the comic strip)… As long as the answer contained, “not right now,” I figured I was still in the running, no matter how jaded I had become.

By now, we were looking at buying a house rather than continuing to waste money paying rent. Married or not, we were looking for an investment. Due to my credit situation at the time it was pretty much a matter of her buying a house, but with an eye toward jointly paying the mortgage and the plan of us both living there. We scrimped, saved, and I even borrowed a couple grand from my father, which I promptly repaid – well, promptly as in about two years later, but I added interest to the total, and I honestly believe he was tickled to receive the check. Even though he didn’t “need” it, nor had he even expected repayment, it proved to him that I was as good as my word, and to him, a man’s word was really all he had. But, as I’ve said before, that’s a different blog…

At any rate, we were sitting at work one Saturday… yeah, when you are building a company you tend to work long hours and have very few days off … and since no customers were going to be coming in one of the owners brought along a twelve pack of beer. I was configuring an old R L L (Run Length Limited) hard drive in a system – to put this in perspective, this was a large hard drive for it’s time…it was all of 30 Megabytes. Not Giga… Mega… So anyway, I was running an old debug command: g=c800:5, which is basically a call to a particular segment of ROM ,(read only memory), on the hard drive controller which would initiate a built in program that would allow the drive to be “low level formatted”… That being, setting up sectors before creating a partition and high level formatting to create the file allocation table (FAT) and such… But, you know, I am now digressing into ancient techie talk here so I am sure you are all glazing over…

Back to the story…

The point I’m trying to make is that I was plugging away at this system and E K was standing behind me, much like she did when we worked together at ComputerTrend. A bit close and a bit distracting… I honestly think she took great pleasure in being able to have that effect on me, even though she staunchly claims she never realized I was turning into Silly Putty at her very touch… Anyway, I took a swig of my beer and since no one else was in the tech center with us at the time, nonchalantly asked over my shoulder, “So, you wanna get married?”

I continued about my task on autopilot, (after all, I had formatted drives like this thousands of times before and could do it in my sleep), and was completely secure in my thoughts that I would hear, “No, not right now.”

But, no matter the answer, the calendar said I had to ask anyway. The prescribed number of days had passed and it was time to throw it out there to see who saluted, smoked, or otherwise kicked it around.

Imagine my utter surprise when Kathy leaned against me,  laid a hand on my shoulder, clucked her tongue, let out what might possibly have passed for a giggle, and  then said, “Yeah, okay… Sure… Why not…”

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: Goin’ To The Chapel…