Referendumb Guide: Deja Vu Edition

     I know I promised not to write about Question 1 again, but I have to meet a word count. So I've come up with a compromise: instead I'll write about less-publicized imaginary Question 1a:

    "Do you think the government should have the right to determine which expressions of love are legitimate and which are not?" 

    Where I come from, the only moral love is love that could yield children. Love is supposed to be for reproduction. Therefore, no one should be able to get married unless they could make a biological family. This includes any man with a vasectomy and any woman over 50.  Sorry!  You are not worthy of the term "marriage." 

    I don't want fat people exchanging vows, either. Yeah, they can technically reproduce, but it's not natural. If you know anything about evolution, you know the obese would not survive long enough in nature to propagate their doughy DNA. Eew.

    Meanwhile, a raging, abusive man addicted to glue can marry a neglectful, alcoholic woman who has already been divorced four times. That's what I call true love, because they can have nine kids and live off the state.

    Um, yeah. So:

    If your beliefs about love are so superior to everyone else's that they should be reflected in our laws, vote "yes." 

    If you're willing to let other people live in accordance with their own morals, even if their beliefs are different from yours, vote "no."

    Moving on: last week I showed questions 2, 3, and 4 who is boss. You won't see them moping around this space again. The rest shouldn't take long, since no one cares about them.

    Question 5: Possession of marijuana for medical purposes has been legal in Maine since 1999, but is still a federal crime. This question asks: "Should we expand the diseases for which people can take pot to include cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, Crohn's Disease, Lou Gherig's Disease, depression, shingles, rickets, herpes, acne, halitosis, that gunk you sometimes get in your eye overnight, persistent fish odor, and the gout?"

    If you're scared that people might abuse the system and get high, shockingly, for no medically necessary reason, vote "no." If you've noticed that this is already happening anyway, but this law might help reduce suffering, vote "yes."

    Question 6: "Dude, how about we borrow 57 bajillion dollars, so the feds will kick in another 97 quadzillion dollars, so we can upgrade highways, bridges, airports, seaports, railways, medical helicopters, and that little Dumbo ride at the state fair?"

    Vote "yes" if you suddenly have little dollar signs in your eyeballs. If you live in Aroostook or Piscataquis Counties, vote "no," since you'll be lucky to see one red cent.

    Question 7: "Hey, can we have a little more time over here to verify all these goddamn signatures for all these frickin' referenda? Like, maybe two weeks instead of one?"

    I am always skeptical of anything that might slow down our remarkably fast and efficient democratic processes. However, the number of citizen petitions in this state is getting unreal. Why pay overtime or hire extra people just to cross check signatures against cemeteries?

    Vote "yes" if you don't give a rat's rectum. Vote "no" if anyone working in your local town office is fat.

Life Insurance Required for Healthy Marriage

Today’s cautionary marital tale is brought to you by the insurance industry.

“Insurance: If you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can’t do without it.”

Often, the most insidious insurance policies are the ones with the most cheerful names.

When you eat two platefuls of undercooked Shepherd’s Pie at the East Loserville Snowmobile Club’s Annual Bluegrass Festival and end up in the hospital for three days heaving all your internal organs into a little plastic tray, your “care” is paid for by “health insurance, “not “sick insurance.”

When the hospital accidentally switches your chart and you end up having open-heart surgery, your settlement is covered by their “liability insurance,” not by “incompetence insurance.”

And when you have an unexpected allergic reaction to the anesthesia and croak on the operating table, your family becomes wealthy via “life insurance,“ rather than “death insurance.”

If we called these things what they really are, people would realize how evil they are and not buy them.

Insurance companies spend most of their resources on two things: 1) advertising, and 2) trying not to give you the product you thought you paid for.

Last week, my life insurance company terminated my policy without warning.

True, my payment was late. I use my bank’s electronic bill pay system, because the money it saves me on postage will almost offset the amount that gets stolen from me when a hacker gains access to my accounts.

But my bank suddenly changed the system on me, so I had to click two buttons, “submit” and then “confirm,” to get a payment through. I didn’t realize this in time.

The insurance company, which I won’t identify here because they’re all the same anyway, sent me a nice reminder notice, alerting me to the problem, and leaving me plenty of time to get the money to them during the “grace period.”

Ha! If only.

In reality, they “terminated” my policy (odd choice of words on their part, but whatever), and said I could get it back if they received my payment in seven days.

I sent the check immediately, and they cashed it eight days later.

Then they sent me a nice form asking me to apply for a new policy – pretty convenient for them, seeing how rates have increased since I first signed up for the old one.

They still had my 280 bucks, and apparently no intention of giving it back. Meanwhile, it would take 27 days, they said, to process my form.

My wife had a serious problem with the lapse in coverage. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little uncomfortable with her sudden intensity about getting me insured again as soon as possible.

What were the chances I would die in the next month? Apparently, pretty good. We had been bickering a lot lately. Every married couple goes through these stretches when you constantly expect your spouse to have better perspective and emotional control than you do.

But I then had one of those important breakthroughs in which I realized everything was my fault. I had apologized, and thought we were squared away.

Apparently not.

So I got on the horn with the insurance company and told them, in no uncertain terms, that my wife really wants to stop over to East Loserville this weekend for the Bluegrass Festival, and my policy darn well better be in effect by then.

Thankfully, they heeded my urgency, and everything’s back to normal.

Right, honey?

The Divorce Calculator

Did you know there is a formula that determines how likely you are to get divorced?

Just visit the “Divorce Calculator” at divorce360.com, and answer five simple questions, including:

How old were you when you got married?

What is your highest level of education?

How often have you told your wife she could have her own gravitational field?

Okay, I made that last one up. It turns out that being a complete jerk is not a factor in determining if you are likely to get divorced. It only matters when you got married.

What a relief, I must say!

I found that only 5% of the people like me are already divorced. It was reassuring to know that my wife will probably continue to stay with me even if I bring home a prostitute who suffers from violent cocaine withdrawal symptoms.

Or – dare I even say it – if I don’t wash out my cereal bowl in the morning.

But then I read that 5% means I am at “average” risk of divorce.

Interestingly, only 4% of people like my wife are divorced, which suggests I might somehow get divorced without her.

Hmmm….

Anyway, as if the Divorce Calculator wasn’t helpful enough, the site also offers relationship advice, including “Tips for a Healthy Relationship.”

These “tips” include such valuable nuggets as “learn to communicate” and “seek out a therapist.”

I’m sure all of you out there suffering through a difficult marriage are slapping your foreheads, asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

As valuable and comprehensive as divorce 360.com may be, I can save my fellow husbands out there some time and legal fees by dispensing my own can’t-miss marriage advice.

Experts say one of the largest sources of marital strife is money. Therefore, you need to make more money. Get started right away.

“That won’t work,” I can hear you saying, “because my wife will just find more ways to squander our increased income.”

Believe me, I know. How dare she waste hard-earned family resources on yet another pair of shoes when you’ve been saving up to get the NFL Network?

This is why you must start hiding money.

(Don’t put it in the same place where you’re hiding the birthday present for your mistress. If your wife finds them both at the same time, you can expect double the consequences.)

Children also help ruin marriages. First of all, never blame a child for taking up so much of your attention and energy that your wife has none left over to give to you. Instead, blame your wife for wanting to have children in the first place.

Then, channel the blame into action. If your wife is “tapped out,” do things to help restore her energy and enthusiasm. She will appreciate it, and you stand to gain, too.

Even little actions, like taking a moment to rub her shoulders while she cooks dinner, or complimenting her appearance as she bends to pick up a basket of laundry, can send a clear message that her happiness is your number one concern, and that you’ll be expecting sex later.

If all that fails, you may need to take drastic measures to appease the Divorce Calculator.

Get remarried when you’re older, or go back to school. Problem solved.

The Perfect Husband

I thought my marriage was in great shape. Then, one day, when I got home from work, my wife hit me with the words I had dreaded only in my worst nightmares:

“I can't live like this anymore.”

My gut tightened and vibrated, as if I'd swallowed an electric toothbrush. The world began to spin around me as I braced for the impact of her next sentence.

“The house is a disaster.”

I looked around. Everything was where it belonged: a pile of mail on the counter, next to the cutting board. On the table, remnants of Tuesday's dinner remained available for scavenging. Laundry was compressed into an out-of-the-way pile next to the bedroom door.

I marveled at the effort I had made to neatly stack the dishes in a way that would pack the maximum number of plates and cups into the sink while still allowing the faucet a solid inch of clearance to swing back and forth, at least on one side.

Even though I had prepared with dread for this pivotal moment in our relationship, I momentarily forgot I was dealing with a woman at the end of her rope (read: cycle), and I tried to reason with her.

“This is not a disaster,” I said, with a tone of authority that would later haunt me on the couch. “Hurricane Ike was a disaster.

“This, my dear, is simply a case of mild disorder. Nothing to freak out about.”

It was soon made clear to me that I was the one with the disorder. Several of them, actually.

I tell this story to illustrate that no matter how much we think our society has advanced toward equality of the sexes, the males are still the ones who have to register for the draft, and the females are still the ones who are trained subliminally to notice every puny, insignificant patch of soap scum that makes it nearly impossible to breathe within eight or ten feet of the bathroom.

I don't know bout you, but it really burns my briefs.

The Today Show recently aired a segment explaining that women want men to take on an equal share of domestic responsibilities, but they resent it when we do a good job at it.

The modern dad spends an average of 21.7 hours a week “on childcare and related duties, like shopping and housework,” an increase of nine hours a week since 1978, according to msnbc.

Sometimes, experts say, if the dad actually does something well, mom gets insecure about no longer being #1, and has to knock him down a peg with a few weeks of incessant nagging or nitpicking.

(Okay, the article didn't say it that way, but you get the drift.)

I found this insight very helpful. Every time I get my daughter dressed, my wife has to make a bunch of exasperated comments and do it over again because I made some critical error, as if her eventual college admissions status will depend on whether or not she wore a pink shirt with red pants.

After a while, I start to wonder why I bother.

“Researchers found that even dads who believed they should be highly involved in childcare shied away from doing things for their infant if Mom was very judgmental,” the article states.

Fellas, we just have to remember that the wife’s criticism is just her way of saying how wonderful you are.

Mention that to her the next time she tells you she “can’t live like this anymore.” Let me know how it works out.