Big Mike: A Guide For The Married Man

With The Loved One spending her weekdays in Bloomington, Indiana now, leaving me and the cats, Boutros and Terra, to our own devices, I've been thinking about the nature of marriage, love, relationships, and other forms of comedy.

TLO seems to be suffering more than we are. After all, she's sleeping in a sublet room, sharing an apartment with a cerebrum-on-legs grad student, while the cats and I have the run of the Louisville manor. We phone numerous times a day just to hear each others' voices. The conversations regularly seem to end up with one or both of us dewy-eyed.

I might think that would be the tale any married couple would tell in a similar situation but, of course, that isn't true at all. Take a couple of examples. My neighbor, Captain Billy, grants me the benefits of his wisdom as often as he can - that is, whenever her sees me before I can see him. The Captain has many fascinating ideas about husbandly duties and wifely obeisance.

He had much to say to me when he learned that I would drive TLO to work downtown every day before she jumped for saner pastures. We're a one-car family and I didn't want to be stuck without one. The Captain told me there was a perfectly good bus stop about a mile away and that my wife should have the decency to take that bus, thereby not putting me out and, besides, gas cost nearly four dollars a gallon at the time. "What the hell's wrong with her?" he demanded.

The Captain's family, being a normal Kentucky brood, has enough vehicles to open a used car lot. Everone in the family has a set of wheels. Hell, if Boutros and Terra lived with them, they'd have cars too. Normally, the Captain's wife drives her own car to work but at the time her car, a massive heap with a robust engine that serves as my alarm clock every morning, was on the fritz. Since the car has been in use since the Taft administration, it took weeks to find parts for it. Through those weeks, the Captain deigned only to drop his bride off at the bus stop, rather than haul her all the way to work (or, god forbid, let her use his car.)

For kicks, I decided to check the bus schedule to see how long her trip might be. It turned out she had to ride and hour and fifteen minutes each way. That bus, by the way, comes by every hour so woe unto her should she miss it.

I told the Captain that TLO might not reward me with a hug and a kiss if I suggested such a scheme to her. The Captain recoiled as if I'd taken a swing at him. "You tell her to take the bus," he advised. "You don't ask her."

Naturally, if I'd ever approach the delicate flower in that manner, I'd be the one recoiling from a flurry of swings.

I merely laughed off the Captain's advice and he walked away probably convinced my testicles are the size of protons.

Now, example number two. Skip the Trombonist's wife slipped while walking down the stairs late last fall and broke her ankle so badly she had to have metal bolts surgically inserted. Since she'd be confined to a wheelchair for a couple of months, she decided to stay in Harrodsburg in her sister's one-story home.

One Tuesday, during our Trivia game (Skip and I are part of Team Gorlock) I asked him if he missed the love of his life. "Damned right I do," he replied. "The dishwasher's full, the litter box is overflowing, there's nothing in the refrigerator. Shit, the place is a mess."

"Have you cooed these words into her ear yet, you old Romeo?" I asked.

"Nah. Why should I? Nothin' she can do about it now," he said.

After growing up in a family and neighborhood where husbands and wives regarded each other as if they were operating under United Nations-imposed cease-fires, I can be forgiven for thinking The Loved One and I have a rather unique relationship. Then again, I think of friends like Danny and Sophia, Ben and Pam, Milo and Sharon, all of whom have been hitched for more than 20 years. And if their words are to be believed, none has ever even entertained the notion of having an innocent fling. They all seem to cherish and care for their cellmates.

Who are the oddballs? We who sorta like our cellmates or Captain Billy, Skip, and their respective helpmeets?

Note from Big Mike: Celebrate today! It's the 200th birthday of both Abie Baby Lincoln (the original cast recording of "Hair" was the first album I ever owned - if you get the reference, you are awfully cool) and Charles Darwin. Both gents believed in god, pretty much the only thing I can take issue with either of them.

Big Mike: Flipping Pizzas Or Flipping Out?

I'd only disclosed this secret to two people: Skip, the trombonist, and Andy, who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and serves venti lattes at the Starbucks in the Kroger on Westport Road.

Now I'm putting it out there: I've been harboring a desire to work in the kitchen at the pizza joint a half mile down on Goose Creek Road.

Since The Loved One quit her job in November (the job, by the way, that we moved to Louisville for) we've had to tighten our belts here at Chez Studs. Actually, I couldn't be happier that TLO quit - the job was tearing her apart, making her miserable. The change in her has been remarkable - yet another reason why I'll always tell people, If you hate what you're doing, stop doing it now.

Anyway, I need to generate a bit more moolah so our retirement account doesn't drop into the double digits. I play Trivia at this pizza joint every Tuesday night as part of Team Gorlock. Skip and I are the core of the team with three or four other guys occasionally floating in and out. Andy is the emcee for the game; he draws up the questions and then battles the sound system trying to announce them.

Team Gorlock is the reigning champ. You might call us the New York Yankees of Trivia. We lost to the Thrashers a few weeks ago and there was stunned silence when the final score was announced. Then the Thrashers erupted in a noisy celebration worthy of yesterday's inauguration. Since then, we've regained our rightful place at the top.

This pizza joint is pretty much run by members of the species, Pan Troglodytes. If your order comes out correctly, consider yourself fortunate. And trying to get a drink at the bar, no matter how light the business, is like extracting your own wisdom tooth. That's why I won't reveal the real name of the place. Let's call it Dick's Pizza.

So, considering that I need a part-time job and considering that TLO will be spending every work week (with our only car) in Bloomington starting in ten days, it occurred to me that I ought to apply for a job at Dick's. It's a healthy walk away and, jeez, the place needs someone with a brain (that would be me.)

I really learned how to make pizzas when I was the In-Store Educator at Whole Foods Market in Evanston. The boys in deli showed me how to do it quickly and uniformly. They even taught me how to spin the dough high in the air. I'd been making pizzas at home for years but the project would take about ten hours, resulting in one or two pies. Now I know how to churn them out.

I figured, hell, Dick's is always looking for kitchen help so I'll give it a shot. It ain't a glamorous position but so what? I'd make slightly less than a panhandler but, again, so what?

For the last three weeks I've been trying to corral the manager to ask him if he might consider hiring me. Sadly, this manager (let's call him Otis) has been barred from hanging out at the place during his off-hours because he's caused a riot or two after enjoying some after-work refreshments and now when he's on duty he makes himself so scarce even the other employees can't locate him. Hmm.

Then, last night before Trivia, I found out the owner of the place was prowling around. I'd never seen her before. She owns several other locations around Louisville and rarely visits this one. Skip pointed her out to me. Let's call her Leona.

Aha, I thought. Screw Otis. I'll go right to the top and lean on Leona for a job. We had about 15 minutes to go before the game so I got up to walk toward the bar where Leona was pacing back and forth like a caged leopard. Before I took two steps, Leona unleashed a roar.

"God damn it!" she hollered. "Can't I get anybody around here who wants to work? Doesn't anybody care? These fuckers! You gotta take ownership, you gotta care about your job. You can't just come in here and do the minimum. If something needs to be done, do it! What the hell am I gonna do around here? Fuckin' assholes." She took a swig from a bottle of beer and came around the bar to sit on a stool. I'd frozen in my tracks.

Leona looked around at all the stunned customers' faces. "I mean it!" she yelled. "This is shit. I'm tired of this!" She'd worked herself up so much she had to pat the sweat off her forehead with a bar napkin. She took another swig. "Honest to god, the people around here aren't worth a dime. Idiots." She went on in this vein for endless minutes.

Finally, after it appeared she was calming down, Skip tried to break the tension with humor, suggesting, "Why don't you pay 'em more?"

Wrong tactic. Leona started in again. "Fuck that!" she exploded. "I pay 'em too much as it is. If I paid 'em what they're worth, they'd owe me money!" This went on for more endless minutes. Skip looked around, sheepish, and shrugged.

By now, the Trivia game was due to begin. Andy wrestled with his microphone and the PA system as usual. Leona picked up her beer and, sans jacket, stomped out of the place. Andy was at the top of his game. Here are some of his questions:

• Food & Beverage - what product is the company Perugina noted for?
• US Presidents - who was the first president born in a state other than the original 13 colonies?
• Music - which pop singer is known by the nickname, the Duchess?
• The Periodic Table - which element is represented by the symbol Hf?
  

Skip and I labored. The game goes on for three rounds, ten questions each. For each round, you rank your answers on a 1-10 scale, giving the answer you have the most confidence in 10 points and the least, one. So the maximum number of points you can earn in a round is 55 - 165 for the whole game. Team Gorlock, I'm happy to say, finished with a total of 141 points to remain the champs. Our victory was greeted by chants of Gorlock sucks, Gorlock sucks. My chest swelled with pride.

The answers, I should add, to the aforementioned questions are: chocolate, Lincoln, Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas, and hafnium. Of these four, Skip and I missed only chocolate.

Oh, I've dropped the idea of asking for a job at Dick's. It wouldn't be a glamorous position and I'd probably make more money panhandling.