If Mama Ain't Happy

Somebody once told me that I come with a lotta policies, rules, regulations, specifications -- that kinda thing -- probably like pledging a fraternity, or maybe joining the Army (which is just silly, cause I run, at best, a paramilitary-style outfit). As any Intern who's ever worked with me will tell you, all I really want to hear is "ma'am, yes ma'am!" My guess is this does not make me the least bit unique.

I was only engaged once and I didn't much care for it. Except for one thing... I won more arguments. Because as soon as I realized how much he wanted to get married (vs how much I coulda cared less if I ever got married, to him, or anybody else), I started using it. Every argument ended with "if you honestly think I could be married to a man who would...." [insert any variety of ridiculous statements here, up to and including "a man who would wear that to a summer wedding."] I remember the last one, because it started out with me wanting to eat at Ramsey's, and he wanted to eat ... I don't know... somewhere else. Not Ramsey's. And my answer was, "well I am certainly not getting married to some guy who..." I was half-joking (only half, probably, because I was really in the mood for pie), but that is where I finally lost the argument, because that is when he started crying. I didn't really hear anything he said after that, because my ears were just ringing too loudly with rage. I hate it when people cry. Which of course he knew, which is (I'm sure) why he did it. I still don't know what the correct response is when people cry, but I now know it is not: "Baby!"  In the end, we (obviously) didn't end up getting married -- surprising precisely no one. There never was a fight that ended that relationship. He did one thing, and I certainly wasn't going to marry a man who did THAT. If it had happened a little later, we would've lost deposits, and that might've made me cry, but nothing else would've.

One thing I will say he mastered though was the Art of the Apology (the whole: Randy Pausch I was wrong/I'm sorry/how can I make this up to you? thing. When he was wrong, he said he was wrong, he apologized, and he fixed it.

And what he learned from me was what happened when he didn't apologize and atone in the manner, and time frame, that was previously agreed on and dictated by policy. Every infraction gave me a certain number of points to spend, as I saw fit.

For example, the first thing I would do was: break or otherwise destroy something he really liked -- not in a big, dramatic, dish-throwing kind of way. I would just take something he cared about and put it down the trash chute. Usually when he wasn't looking. (He lived in a Buckhead high-rise, and anything that went down those chutes was definitely irretrievable.)

The second thing I would do was break or destroy something he had given to me -- the more sentimental the better. That was usually when he was looking, but again, nothing dramatic -- I just dropped a lot of stuff. I am notoriously clumsy, and it coulda gone either way.

The third thing I would do was take a piece of information he really didn't like people knowing and tell all my girlfriends. No deep, dark secrets, but there was this funny birthmark.... well, here, it's just easier if I just show you the pictures. (Just kidding. That was long before I had a blackberry. And facebook.)

There was a fourth thing. Let's just say I'm not proud of it, and I'd even go so far as to say it was probably... wrong.
But he'll have to get his own blog if anybody wants to know about that.