Heather Christena Schmidt

Right now – at this very moment – there is a bridal shower going on in the neighbor’s backyard.  Besides the obvious annoyance of the fact that the street is completely overrun by cars and SUVs parked in front of people’s driveways (rude, much?), the party has grown to be so loud that I would leave the house … if only the driveway were not blocked by a very large, yellow Hummer.

The worst part of this party is that the woman hosting it has got to have the loudest voice in all of California.  Whether I am inside or outside; on one side of the house or the other, I can hear her loud, blathering words like a series of ice picks piercing through my head.  And it isn’t just her annoying chatter that is on this misanthrope’s nerves this fine, Saturday afternoon; it’s the content of it as well.  Every few minutes I can hear her belting out more “you know they say”s… about all the reasons that marriage is the next best thing to chocolate pudding.

Now if I were truly antisocial, and intent on ruining the bridal shower altogether, I would march out into the back yard right now and belt right back all the reasons this woman’s “you know they say”s… are nothing more than myths.  It isn’t that I’m against marriage, I’m just against misinformation.  We’ve talked about this before – about people that go into marriage in essence ruin it as a result of having an unrealistic idea of what it was going to be like.  Here is what I would have screamed:

#1 “Listen here, loud mouth!  Being married does not always guarantee you never have to find a date again!”  Actually, it’s quite the contrary.  Since I have gotten married, I have probably gone to more things as a “party of one” than with my husband.  And oftentimes, I feel as if I have to go that way, rather than taking a willing guy friend, simply to dodge the gossip that would inherently follow over my being seen with another man in public.  The fact of the matter is that, while your marriage and lives together are numero uno, dos, and treis, on the sequence of priorities, sometimes your spouse has to work.  My personal goal for the rest of the year?  Get over the concern of what others think if I show up with a guy friend by my side instead of my husband.  The truth is that some things are detestable if you don’t have someone there to scoff at it with you.

#2 “And while I’m at it, mouth-o:  the bride-to-be’s husband will very likely not always be her source of absolute truth.”  I realized that my husband would rather tell a lie than suffer my wrath about a year ago when I asked him if he had left my freshly baked brownies uncovered all night.  He claimed he had not and that he had just uncovered them to throw some in his lunch, although as soon as he walked away to take his shower I looked and there were no brownies in the lunch bag.  The truth to the matter is that a lot of men would rather tell a white lie to avoid confrontation (the path of least resistance) than just fess up to the truth.  Top piece of proof we have this is true?  The lady blathering that ridiculous myth about husbands always being honest clearly doesn’t have an honest husband, for if she did she would know her tone is obnoxious.

“#3 is just plain stupid!  You no longer have to worry about making a full load of laundry?”  At this point I asked to myself – “where does this woman get this crap?”  I don’t know about any of you, faithful blog followers, but as a woman I have absolutely no problem putting together a full load of laundry.  Between my husband and myself, we have more clothing than any two people should probably ever have.  Laundry (dirty or clean) is no issue for us, except where to put it all.

#4 “Ma’am, if you would shut your loud yap for a few minutes, I could explain to you exactly how your spouse does not always understand how weird your relatives are!”  My husband and I both have pretty eccentric families, or at least eccentric pockets within the family at large.  And no matter what either of us does to try and understand the weirdness, we don’t.  Family events are always a shocker to the both of us.

#5 “And for the love of God, loud neighbor I never knew could be so loud:  marriage does not mean your spouse no longer cares about how you look!”  This is the worst thing anyone could believe:  that once they get married, they are with someone who doesn’t care how you look anymore.  It’s true that we marry people who should love us for our selves, rather than our looks, but that doesn’t actually mean your spouse thinks you look wonderful no matter how you look.  On occasion, my husband lets his hair grow out, but not only does he grow it longer, he just lets it go completely.  It’s disgusting – there are tufts of hair everywhere and he looks unkempt and sloppy.  Sure, I still love my husband; but I do care if he lets himself go like that.  And while we should all feel beautiful even in our sweatpants, we should also take pride in doing things for ourselves – like getting a new haircut, making our nails look nice, and dressing up once in a great while.

Good luck to the bride and groom, especially in the event that they believe my loud neighbor’s promises!