SCRIBE'S RANT ON THE CURRENT STATE OF MARRIAGE

I’ll tell you the real reason we needed a more leftwing president in the Oval Orifice: This rampant traditionalism needs to stop immediately. People are becoming way too into the whole marriage and children thing and it is truly disgusting.

Here’s why: Only an idiot, a whopping moron, a simpering simpleton, a vapid nimrod, a useless lump of flesh, a special needs savant, a Republican or a nondenominational Protestant doesn’t recognize marriage for what it really is. Simply put, it’s an artificial system designed to maximize social control while insuring economic stability and future generations. Yes, most of us fall in love with someone at least once (five times a month in my case) and can’t see ourselves without him or her, but mating for life is not the same thing as marriage.

You see, kids, marriage is a legal definition for two people who have apparently decided enjoyable sex is no longer a necessity or, at the very least, that doing it with more than one person might be fun and fun is the tool of Satan. In the words of Mike Meyers’ Wayne form the epic Wayne’s World films, “Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.”

However, thanks to an AIDS scare and a raging neo-con religious fanatic in the White House, my fellow Gen-X’ers and their younger counterparts decided to go all neo-traditional on our asses. This has resulted in a nauseating culture of whiney soccer moms and wimpy husbands who think they’re manly. It is the former that annoys me most of all.

Many women have taken a giant backseat, thereby pissing on the many years of feminist activism that accomplished little things such as the vote, career advancement and the ability to wear pants to work. By opting to stay home and be new school June Cleaver’s, a message has been sent to the Right that this is the natural state of things and everything else was a failure. Anything that makes the accomplishments of the Sixties look bad makes them look good and these mindless adherents are doing all their footwork for them.

Despite several pieces written by me decrying marriage as a form of indoctrination, I don’t take issue with the institution itself. For some, it is a beautiful union of two morons hopelessly in love. For others, there’s some involvement on the part of God because apparently he/she really gives a rat’s ___ what you do in your private life and doesn’t have enough work on his/her desk to cause a sufficient distraction. That’s why I’m starting a “Give God More to do” movement…more on that to come…

Meanwhile, people continue to disgust and annoy me with their overly sentimental marriage behavior. Here are a few of the more obnoxious examples I have encountered or heard about:

A former co-worker whose hair looks like a helmet, an obvious former reformed ho who answers her cell phone with a loud and sickeningly sweet, “Hello, my husband!”

A guy written about on this very blog whose much younger wife wouldn’t listen to him, prompting him to yell, “I am your HUSBAND and you will listen to me!”

A former supervisor whose obsession with being married causes constant and sometimes repulsive conversations at inappropriate times. For instance, “Well, you know ___ loves a pierced ahem.”

Another former co-worker whose vampiric allergy to sunlight was overshadowed only by her constant introducing of her spouse as “My husbaaaaannnnnnnnnnnndddddddd Ronnnnnnnnnnn.”

Women who don’t even refer to their husbands by their names, choosing instead to call them “Husband” or “Hubby.” So now it’s not, “Joe wants to go there,” it’s “Husband wants to go there.” They are either oblivious or unconcerned when it comes to the reactions this shit causes.

But the most offensive of all are the ones that call in for their spouses and wanna get all bad-assabout it like they’re ready to go to blows if you don’t like it. What the hell is that all about? One case in particular comes to mind where the guy called in for his wife and basically went on this diatribe about how she was sick and he was forbidding her from going to work and that was that and if there was any problem with it the supervisor could call him and discuss it with him personally.

Excuse me? Can you imagine Scribe getting that call? Let’s role-play for a moment, shall we?

HUBBYKINS:…So if there are any questions or problems, you can discuss it with me.
SCRIBE: Well, we might as well do that now.
HUBBYKINS: Excuse me?
SCRIBE: I’m not quite ready to excuse you yet. I guess my first question is why are you speaking to me as if you’re my employer?
HUBBYKINS: I’m just letting you know that my wife…
SCRIBE: Yes, I know she’s your wife. I’m pretty sure the whole world knows she’s your wife. So I’m wondering why you feel comfortable putting her job at risk by coming across like a bully-boy instead of simply calling in sick on her behalf.
HUBBYKINS: Is there going to be a problem with her being sick?
SCRIBE: With her being sick? Of course not. With the threatening and authoritative tone of her husband’s call-in? Maybe.
HUBBYKINS: Well, I wasn’t…
SCRIBE: A simple “She’s sick and won’t be in” will suffice from now. Have a great day, Huuuusssssbaaaannnnnddddd.

I know I’m weird and I’m cool with that but I don’t like it when people think they can speak for people in a hostile or overly controlling way. I also don’t care for women who let it happen out of some perceived need to be protected from everything. And I really hate people who allow themselves to be sheltered like small children.

I realize this thing has its roots in the single parent household phenomenon of the late Seventies and Eighties. Divorced parents were so common when I was a kid it was nearly impossible to find an intact husband & wife combo if the kid was out of single digits. In response to that, many members of Degeneration-X decided to rebel against the rebellion by taking a more traditional path. A collective of colossal bores, we are thankfully one of the smallest generations in U.S. history. Sadly, the twenty-somethings directly behind us are even more mindless rule followers.

All of us follow our programming to some extent. Few of us break the programming in favor of new sub-routines. But would it kill people to take a step back and try to objectively look at themselves?

Yes, of course it would. That’s why those bumper stickers say, “People Suck.” We’ve become such a media-saturated consumer culture that we can no longer see beyond the next plasma screen TV. Half of us let a 2000-year-old culturally irrelevant manifesto for revolution tell us what to do and think and the other half go along to get along.

People in this country may think they’re more socially responsible and substantial than previous generations, but stumbling around in the dark for a light switch during a lightening storm only amounts to stupidity~