Mollywogger

I’ve given you examples before of how my husband will suddenly say, in all seriousness, the most baffling things I’ve ever heard.

 

Some of my favorites that I haven’t mentioned before include his telling me what he would ever do if he was in jail to avoid being raped.  Recent ideas include spreading a rumor that he has AIDS or sticking razor blades up his ass.  Or, if he was ever on death row, he would eat a huge bowl of chili right before he was executed since people shit themselves after death and he would want the wardens to have to clean it up.

 

However, this morning’s exchange takes the cake:

 

Hal: Hey Molly?

 

Me: Yeah?

 

Hal: If you ever decide to kill me by poisoning me, tell the police who come to get the body that I’m Jewish.  That way they’ll bury me that night and there won’t be time to perform an autopsy.

 

Me: So, wait . . . basically, you’ve just told me how to get away with your murder.  Uh, why?

 

Hal: Because you’re my wife and I love you and I don’t want you to go to jail.

 

[pause]

 

Hal: But don’t kill me, please.

 

Me: Wow.  The high is only 47 today* - rainy and windy, with wind gusts up to 50 mph.

 

Hal: What the hell is going on with the weather?  Seriously, what is this?

 

Me: No idea, dear.

 

Hal: I know what it is.  Avian flu.

 

Me: *sigh*

 

Hal: DAMN YOU, OSAMA!

 

 

*8 degrees Celsius 

Hal: Molly, I really need to learn how to use a gun.

 

Me: OK.

 

Hal: Wanna know why?

 

Me: Why?

 

Hal: Avian flu.

 

Me: Oh, Christ.

 

Hal: You've seen "The Stand" miniseries! 

(Incredibly long post ahead – skip to the bottom if you just want to see the rock)

 

I've been meaning to tell the story of how Hal and I met for a long time, and this provided the perfect opportunity.

 

I had always believed that when I met the guy I was going to marry, it would somehow be obvious to me.  I would recognize him somehow, or something about him would look familiar.

 

During my sophomore year in college, I started dating a guy named Mike who was . . . interesting.  Little more needs to be said on that account.  However, the most interesting thing about him was that he took the time to walk me down the hall in his dorm and introduce me to a friend of his, Anthony.  While I was in Anthony’s room I strolled about, examining things, as Anthony told me about his roommate, Hal.  I could see from the state of the room that Hal and I would probably have a lot in common.  While Anthony was impeccably clean and neat (the type of guy who wears suits sometimes just . . . because), Hal’s areas were a bit of a mess.  Lots of used kleenexes, from what I recall.  However, I noted with some amusement that his CD collection was perfectly alphabetized, not a CD out of place.  Looks like my kind of guy, I thought.  A bit of a slob with a hearty dash of anal retentiveness thrown in for good measure.  Then I glanced a blurry picture of him on the wall – one of those grainy, black and white blown-up pictures you can print up at booths in the mall.  Do I know that guy?  He looks so familiar to me.  Were we in all-state choir together in high school?  Have I seen him on campus?  Hal, I quickly found out, was in a long-term relationship (which began in high school) with Katie.  Since I hadn’t met him yet, I tucked that factoid into the corner of my mind and moved along.

 

A few weeks later, Mike introduced me to Hal and Katie in the main commons at the college.  I greeted them kindly, talked a few moments with Hal (who still looked familiar) and went on with my life.  (I was later told by Hal that Katie (somewhat the jealous type) disliked me instantly – “She was totally flirting with you right in front of me!”  What can I say, ladies?  I guess I’m slutty in more ways than just the cleavage-baring one.)

 

I broke up with Mike later that month (there’s something about dating a guy who’s convinced that his girlfriend is going to hell that kind of . . . well . . . turns you off to the entire situation), and things were shaky between him and I for a while, but eventually we were good friends again (even though, mind you, I was still going to hell).  The rest of sophomore year went by with the usual flirtations and infatuations.

 

During the following summer, my roommate Jessie (who was good friends with Anthony) informed me that Hal had broken up with Katie.  “Any other girls in mind?” I asked.  “Well, no, he’s just fishing around, checking out the waters.”  I believe I made an incredibly cheesy comment to her along the lines of “Well, I wish he’d cast his line my way!”  Dork.

 

That fall, Hal, Mike, and Anthony all became roommates.  Meanwhile, my 5 housemates and I had a very pompous, trying-to-be-grown-up formal Wine and Cheese party, and invited Hal and his roommates.  While we were all wearing formal dresses and making uneducated comments about the wine, Hal showed up wearing an interesting getup – a plaid shirt, mismatched plaid tie, and mismatched tweed jacket.  He and his roommates brought a giant plate of crackers held together by an entire can of EZ Cheese.  He’s always hated people who are going out of their way to be snobs.  Smartass.

 

Hal and I chatted now and then, and at one point we decided to get together and watch a movie (It ended up being a movie on Hitler for a class he was taking – oh, the romance! – but we talked through most of it, so I’m not sure he got much out of it).  We saw a lot of each other after that, and after a few dates he said these exact words: “Would you mind terribly if I gave you a kiss?”  Of course, I said I wouldn’t.

 

Dating Hal was great, despite very bad blood at first between him and his now-roommate, Mike.  Imagine, now Hal was *dating* a girl who was going to hell!  When will this demon stop seducing others into her life?!

 

I particularly remember one time Hal and I walked over to the east side of campus and sat in a beautiful tree with low-to-the-ground branches.  It was there that we first talked about the possibility of getting married, and it felt really good.

 

 

Fast-forward to a year and a half later.  I had graduated and was working in Minneapolis, he was finishing his senior year.  I made the 4 hour drive up to my alma mater a few times a month to see him, and during one of these weekends (late November, COLD, a foot of snow on the ground), he convinced me to go for a walk because he had left his bike over on the east side of campus.  I was pretty much sure what he was up to by that point.  We tromped through the snow and got to the bike rack.

 

"I thought you said that your bike had been here all fall,” I commented.

 

"Yeah, it has.”

 

“Well, how come there’s no snow on the seat?  And there are fresh track marks behind it?”

 

Pause.

 

Hal, with anger, “SOMEONE WAS RIDING MY BIKE!  THOSE BASTARDS!”

 

At this point, it’s incredibly hard to keep from laughing because it’s so obvious that he parked it there about 4 hours ago.

 

We started back to his house, bike in tow.  “Oh, hey,” Hal mentions, mock-casually.  “There’s that tree we sat on that one time.  Let’s go check out that tree again.”

 

(Yeah, let’s just casually drag our asses into the middle of a field through a foot of snow while I’m wearing open-backed clogs to check out a tree.  Sure.  No reason.)

 

Hal parked his bike across the street, we went to the tree, and he made a few comments then kneeled, pulled out a ring, and asked, “Would you mind terribly if I asked you to be my wife?”

 

Of course, I said I didn’t mind.

 

Great jubilation followed, I put on the ring, and was pleased as punch.  Until some local drunk frat boys walked by across the street and started messing with Hal’s bike.  One pushed it over, another grabbed it and started walking away.  Hal was pissed.

 

"Hey!  What the hell!  That’s MY BIKE!  I’m trying to PROPOSE over here, guys!”  They were highly drunkly apologetic, and even congratulated us.  Ah, yes, our first congratulations on our upcoming nuptials – from a bunch of drunk frat guys.

 

We were married July 20, 2002.  He is still wonderful, he still alphabetizes his CDs, and we’ve shared the happiest years of our lives.  Love you, honey.

 

And now for the BLING:

My aunt and uncle own a jewelry store in Georgia, and Hal worked with them to create this original, one-of-a-kind ring hand-engraved by the designer.  I had told him, “I want three princess-cut diamonds, you do the rest.”  I couldn’t get a good shot of the beautiful engraving on the sides/bottom, but Hal did well, no?

 

P.S. -- Check out the rest of the Bloggirls' Engagement Rings here!

Hal: You know what we should do?  We should adopt an alien baby and it can grow up to be Superman!

Molly: Yeah.  That sounds good.

 

Show continues.

 

Next commercial break:

 

Hal: Seriously though.  I wonder how we could get an alien baby to adopt.  Wouldn't that be cool?

Molly: You know that if you continue this line of coversation that I'll have to blog about it, right?

Hal: (dejectedly) Yes.  I know.

Remember what a giant nerd he is?

 

I have further evidence.

 

After watching an episode of "Smallville" the other night, he used the words "Superman,"  "mythos," and "vis-à-vis" all in one sentence.

 

Wow.  Are you also speechless in the presence of such pure, unadulterated dorkiness?

110 apologies for having kept you waiting so long for a post, friends.  The truth is, I spent a few lovely days in beautiful Blue Earth County, Minnesota (with a quick trip up to my hometown in the Twin Cities for a wedding), and I spent yesterday remembering that fateful day, three years ago, when I was adding a final coat of OPI Nomad’s Dream to my little pink toes, jamming them into the most uncomfortable shoes on God's green earth (not kidding, ya'll - I regained feeling in three of my toes about two weeks after the big day), twisting a few pearl-threaded stephanotis into my hair, and moseying on down the aisle.

 

(Incidentally, that may be the world’s longest sentence outside of, like, Ulysses).

 

My husband and I are generally low-key about anniversaries, so we hadn’t planned gifts or elaborate dates – we planned Chinese takeout from our favorite place and perhaps a movie at home.  Hal usually sleeps in a bit during the summer, but for some reason it didn’t strike me as odd that he had his alarm set for 5:00 yesterday.  I generally get up around 6:15, so when the bedroom light snapped on at 5:45, I rolled over with the most hair-singeing glare I could muster.  There stood my husband in the doorway, holding a tray full of breakfast in bed for me.  Yes, ladies, it was quite possibly the sweetest moment ever.  The eggs and toast and oatmeal were delicious.  (“I followed the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe for frying eggs where you spoon melted butter over the top of the egg while it’s frying.”)  And, in true Hal fashion, he knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat it all, so he lay there on his stomach waiting for me to give him the go-ahead to clean my plate.  That’s my husband.  Sweet, giving, adorable, and perpetually hungry.

 

I’m afraid I have very little in the way of wedding pictures that won’t blatantly display our loveable mugs to the entire world, so you’ll have to settle for this poorly-scanned picture of me in my gorgeous dress (my wedding photographers truly are awesome, our scanner just sucks).  Enjoy this little peek into Wogger life.

 

 

 

A few years ago, before I got married and before I became a government drone, I had a job in customer service (note to self: NEVER AGAIN.  But that begets a post in and of itself, while this post is a happy, pleasant post).  Now, I must admit, as customer service jobs go, this one was about as good as it gets (yet, not super.  But again I digress).  I worked for a publishing house associated with a major protestant denomination, so I spoke mainly with little old church ladies named Mabel and Doris and Christian book store owners and (mostly) friendly pastors.  The ideal customers to service, no?  The vast majority of the time, yes.

 

I noticed one trend among earnest, church-going Midwestern grandmas that I found especially endearing: the way these women said the word "dash."  Each product we sold had a 10-digit ISBN with 3 dashes in it, none of which were really necessary to voice when reading off the product number.  However, your average God-fearing Phyllis wanted to read every character with her delightful Midwestern accent, so an order would sound like this:

 

"The number is . . . I . . . S . . . B . . . N . . .   . . .  9 . . . DAYSH . . . 4 . . . 0 . . . 3 . . . 2 . .  DAYSH . . . 9. . . 2 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . DAYSH . . . 1."

 

At this point I was never sure whether to beat my head against the keyboard because she was speaking . . . so . . . slowly . . . or laugh aloud at the fact that she was saying "daysh" instead of "dash."  Another friend (who also appreciated the "daysh" phenomenon) and I would hit mute on our headsets long enough to call to each other, "I've got a daysh-er here!"

 

For some reason, Hal and I both started saying "daysh" to each other to be funny.  Soon we had developed a whole alternate pronunciation of the English language that most people would probably find unforgivably annoying.  In cases of vowels that are similar to the one in "dash," the word (like "cat" or "mad") would become the equivalent of "daysh" (like "cayt" or "mayd").  Soon we started making bizarre changes in other vowels as well: jealous became "jaylous," home became "hoome," pop became "pope."  Seriously, if you listened to us sometimes, you would want to shoot us both, followed by yourself.

 

Now never fear, gentle readers.  We only use dorkified English pronunciation once in a while at home, never around the general public who would immediately call the Wisconsin Department of Public Health and report a moron contamination.  In fact, in public we are so damned normal that you'd never know that not only do we speak like freaks, we also make one of our cats (Stella) speak to us in a gentile Southern accent a la Blanche Dubois while her biological brother has a vocal affectation very similar to Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.

 

Now, I KNOW that my husband and I aren't the only ones who do peculiar things solely in each other's company.  Am I right?

My husband looked at me over dinner last night and said, in all seriousness,

"I think that, given the proper training, I'd be a pretty good cage fighter."

So my husband (The Handsome Linguist) called today.

HL: Molly, I have something to ask you. You know I'm a dork right?
Me: Yeah.
HL: Well . . . would it be OK if I bought a starter kit of Magic: The Gathering cards?
Me: [stifling laughter] Yeah, I guess that would be fine. How much are they?
HL: $12. I could join some of the tournaments up at Pegasus Games.
Me: Sure. Go for it.

The conversation progressed, we talked about what we were eating for dinner, etc. Then . . .

HL: Umm, I have a confession to make. You know how I asked you if I could buy some Magic cards? Well, um . . . I kind of called after the fact.
Me: You already bought them?! Ha!
HL: Well, I was nervous about buying them because you'd think I was a nerd.
Me: I always have, honey.
HL: Didn't you wonder how I already knew what the price was?
Me: I figured you had researched it online or something.
HL: No. But if I tell you how I knew what the price was, you'd laugh at me.
Me: Too late, I'm already laughing my ass off.
HL: *sigh* . . . I found out from one of the 4th graders at school.

At which point I was laughing so hard that everyone at the office turned and looked at me.

He went on to tell me about buying the cards from a guy who looked just like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, who gave him the tournament schedule. Know when the biggest tournaments are held?

Yeah, Friday nights. When else?

(Original Comments)