by Joe Bowyer
Guest Columnist
March 22, 2008 01:08 am
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My wedding to Janie took place in a church with preachers and bridesmaids and all of the trimmings. I can’t think of any arrangement that beats that. It just seems to me that weddings should be solemn and receive God’s recognition.
A lot of people see it differently, however, because I have seen tapes of couples being married on water skis, jumping out of airplanes, on horseback and countless other un-solemn ways. Some couples don’t even bother to get married today. I don’t really know if any of this matters or not, but I like solemn church weddings, because a couple pledging themselves to each other for life is a solemn occasion.
If, however, a lot of couples are going to take other routes to a life together, I have some changes I would like to suggest to the wedding vows we take. I know some couples make up their own vows already, so as a 57-year veteran of marriage, I would like to make some suggestions my past experience tells me would be very practical to include in the ceremony.
Number one, which should be included for the women, is to love, honor and forgive for leaving the toilet seat up. We have two full baths and a half, and if I leave any one of those seats up once over a period of six months, I get caught. A tongue lashing always follows, which I feel is undeserved, because I really try. But if a man takes a pain pill and his mind gets muddled, he should be allowed a mistake on occasion, without being keelhauled for it.
Another one, which would relate mostly to women, is to love, honor and take the blame. When something gets lost or broken or goes wrong, someone has to be accountable for it. A man has lots of responsibilities in a marriage. He is proud with every right to be so. After all, he stands between his family and the world to protect them with his strength. Would it really be fair to expect him to take the blame for minor things that go wrong. No, of course not, so let’s move on.
One for men would be to love, honor and get the bed warm. It’s a sissy of a man who can’t get in bed first and warm it up for his wife in the winter time. No woman should have to get into a cold bed and shiver. Her husband should be an island of warmth, which she can scrooch her back up against and go to sleep peacefully. Janie has always used me as a bed heater, and I have found it to be one of the husbandly duties I enjoy immensely. Of course, every woman isn’t Janie, but other men will have to make do with what they have.
Love, honor and scratch your spouse’s back. Now there is a good one for both parties. Having your back scratched when it itches gets my vote for what holds a lot of marriages together. When everything else is gone and only remembered fondly on occasion, getting your back scratched is still right up there with all of the other good stuff. Its hard to go to bed angry when your back gets scratched.
The minister should fix the woman with a stern eye and tell her she must love, honor and laugh at her husband’s jokes. Not only laugh at them when they are first told, but later on, when they are told for the benefit of someone who hasn’t heard them yet, she must laugh again. Never, never should she say those jokes are old, and she is tired of listening to them. The same goes for stories the husband tells from time to time. The wife should never butt in and finish the story to let everyone know she has heard it many times before. This is a transgression that stands alone in its bad taste.
One for the man would be to love, honor and wear snore strips in their old age. The light snoring of the young and middle aged can be forgiven, but I’ll have to go along with the women that snoring can disrupt a woman’s sleep and send her running for the living room couch or the upstairs bedroom once a certain age is passed. Something just seems to come loose and vibrate in old age. I don’t know what it is, but I even wake myself up on occasion. I haven’t broken any windows yet, but there’s a suspicious crack in the bathroom mirror.
This next one should work for both men and women. To love, honor, and say “Gee, you’re still so beautiful,” or “My, you’re so handsome.” I realize everyone can’t be pretty or handsome maybe, but their spouses should tell them so anyway. It does a lot for your ego, and who knows, I may not be the only man who is still handsome at 77.
Joe Bowyer is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com
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