Ways My Neuroses Could Be Diminished With A Husband: Essay 1

** Side Note, I have been trying to post my 50th essay for the past two weekends and kept having technical difficulties, this is not that article, but maybe one day in the near future I will be able to paste that one as well.

I am a woman of many neuroses as evidenced by the following scenarios:

1. I believe inanimate objects to have feelings such that when I was a child I lost sleep over whether it was a privilege for ice-cubes to be selected to cool my drink or a horrifying death for the poor little icey guys and gals.

2. Ever since I learned of its existence in the ninth grade, I cringe when people misuse the subjunctive tense, even though English classes have not done a great job at getting’ the word out. If I WERE a grammar teacher you can bet people would know about it! (See, since I am not a grammar teacher I have to use were rather than was…that is the main subjunctive rule, consider yourself SCHOOLED).

3. I am constantly inappropriately, unfairly and unnecessarily ranking people and things on my various mediums for list-creation,

and

4. I am known to go for days without showering but still cannot stand the thought of dust on my feet . (Don’t even get me started about long walks on the beach, as I would sooner take up cannibalism as a regular pastime than the foot-rape that occurs on the gravelly shores of Texas.)

So, I could be wrong, but I just have a feeling that having a partner in life might whittle some of these neuroses down to a level that I like to think might be barely recognizable to my eventual DSM-wielding Shrink. Let me be clear about something though, when I say a husband could help,I do not mean through some romantic and spiritual process of sharing a space and a life with another human being--the two of us gently sanding down each other’s rough edges like iron sharpening iron. That, sounds horrible! Sandpaper?! Iron!? C’mon people, I am more of a “Kill ‘em with kindness kind of girl.” But, I digress.

My current neurosis fueled dilemma comes as a result of having just bought a book of funny essays by comedian, Jack Handey (that is his real name by the way). And here is my problem. I find it really unsavory when I go into someone’s bathroom and they seem to have a permanent collection of reading material in there. Call me crazy, but do you really want to advertise to the world that your bathroom habits afford you the kind of time to breeze through East of Eden? Why not just walk around in a T-shirt that you have bedazzled with the words “boweltastic” or “I’d rather be pooping”. I myself, have an unhealthy desire to be preoccupied at all times, but when I am in the bathroom I tend to be pretty goal-oriented, not looking for anything to potentially prolong my stay in the room where people go to do everything with their bodies that they are not allowed to do in front of others.

But this book of essays is the perfect bathroom book. The chapters are just a few pages each and it is light-hearted and mostly meaningless. (You do not want to read serious stuff in the bathroom. What happens if you have the most important epiphany of your life but then you can’t share it with anyone because it would involve them getting a mental image of your underwear hanging down around your feet while you sit on the toilet? Don’t do that to yourself, dude.) Anyway, I am standing there today, gazing into my restroom, hands trembling as I tried to figure out whether or not I cared so little about Jack Handey as an artist that I could take the chance of exposing his work to the invisible but certain cloud of bacteria that is sure to linger in that room, just to give my (apparently) soft-stomached friends a chuckle. But my pride would not let me do it. I cannot have people thinking that I am in the bathroom frequently and enduringly enough to need diversion.

But, if on the other hand, I had a husband, I could just roll my eyes when it came up in conversation like I am always seeing wives do. “Oh, the Jack Handey Book”, I would say condescendingly when it came up in conversation. “I have told Mr. Gosling how unseemly that looks but you gotta let’em win sometimes, am I right ladies?” Then me and all my snotty wife friends would have a laugh at our poor husbands’ expense and go back to playing canasta. I am not sure why I picture myself married in 1958 but I just do sometimes, especially when I am feeling particularly sexist. Plus, I always picture myself using the catch phrase “am I right ladies” a lot more liberally as I will finally have more things in common with my gender about which to commiserate.

But since I am not married, I have some decisions to make about this bathroom turned library debacle, so, Should I:

A. Elope with a Stranger providing he is willing to take the rap for my Jack Handey Book Sitting next to the toilet.

B. Fashion a stand that sits just outside the bathroom door, allowing guests to self-select whether they take the book inside with them.

C. Put the book in the bathroom with a huge-fake- sticky note on the front that says this:
Hey Girl, I got this book and thought of you, but I left it here in the bathroom just to get under your skin. I know both your tastes and your pet peeves so well. Don’t you dare take this book out of the bathroom or I will break up with you. Love, Your Totally Real Boyfriend,
                                                                                                 Leif Luke Tyler McRealenstein


P.S. This is what I look like in case you forgot

Let me know what you think, because I am definitely probably doing whichever one gets the most votes.