The marriage bed

My wife and I have a problem in the bedroom.

I've slept in more places than I can count--from five-star hotels to hammocks, I've seen it all. I've woken up on bare mattresses in houses I didn't recognize, in a bed with two other guys in New Orleans, and once or twice on a bar stool. I've slept on waterbeds, car seats, futon mattresses, and sleeping bags. For going on 12 years, I've shared these surfaces with the same woman.

My wife put up with my sleeping choices for a long time. I'm one who objects to change for the purpose of change. For the first few years of our marriage, we slept on a bed I bought in college from my then-bed-salesman buddy. He told me a got a "deal" on it, but I'm pretty sure I just paid enough commission for him to buy a dime bag. Regardless, since I dropped the cash, I figured to be buried with the mattress.

Several years back, my wife started complaining about quality of our sleeping surface. She begged me to actually buy a big boy bed. I fought her for months, but finally acquiesced after waking up impaled on a bed spring. It was time. The new mattress was perfect. I kicked myself for not giving in sooner.

The bed has served us well, as evidenced by the kid who runs around the house singing about the condition of his underwear and calling himself Mr. Incredible. Recently, though, superhero performances between mommy and daddy Incredible have been a bit off-kilter. As I said, my wife and I have a problem in the bedroom.

Across the fruited plains, couples will use this Valentines Day to celebrate the fruits of their marriage. Some might even do it with fruit. For many folks, this might be one of a few times they get it on all year long. Some of the more adventurous couples might get a hotel room, park bench, or back seat of a Chevette. Most people, though, will light a few Polo cologne scented candles, break out a can of Redi Whip, and head to the marriage bed.

I'm no engineer. My bedroom activity is more art than science. So, I don't know what's wrong. For whatever reason--excessive use, neglect, tectonic movement--the Mt. Otis bed is an unsafe place. The danger doesn't lie only in the freaky-freaky times. My wife and I can be sitting quietly in bed watching Alton Brown and, without notice, the mattress will fall off the bed rails and crash to the floor. When it happens during Good Eats, it's annoying. When it happens at other times, I almost feel the need to say, "I don't know what's wrong. This has never happened before."

There is a sound that perfectly describes the moment. While hard to put into words, imagine a trombone playing three descending notes of dispair. Wonh, wonh, wonnnnnnnnnh. If there ever was a picture of bad naked, it's me struggling against the weight of a giant mattress while trying to re-adjust the box springs in just such a way that the sleeping surface will not slip off the rails and crash to the floor.

The problem has been going on for a few months now. We tried everything to fix the problem. We employed our deepest knowledge of physics, our most spiritual pleas to higher powers, and--just once--called a shaman in to chant over our love nest. The bed would hold for days at a time. Then, at the most inconvenient of times, it would tilt, slip, and collapse like a house of cards.

My wife and I are adventurous to a degree. I mean, we've not yet joined a swingers club or anything, but we don't mind sleeping on a semi-dangerous surface. However, when the bed hits the hardwood in the middle of Good Eats, I stand a good chance of missing once of Alton Brown's witticisms. Nobody wants that.

In the spirit of Valentines Day, I trudged up to the bedroom this morning and wrestled the mattress and box springs off the bed frame (I was fully clothed this time). I opened my tool box, broke out the socket set, and prentended I knew what to do with with man-things. Thirty minutes later, I was jumping up and down on the bed, daring the mattress to collapse. It appears, for the moment, I have fixed the problem. However, with issues like this, the more you think about it, the bigger a problem it becomes. So, I'm trying not to think about it.

My wife and I made a deal for this fake holiday. No gifts, no flowers, no candy, no cards. We only plan to spend the evening together and, maybe, watch the decidedly romantic "Miller's Crossing" in bed. And I swear to Gabriel Byrne, if the bed hits the floor in flagrante delicto, I'm going to cry. Like a little baby.

Glory be

When my wife answered the phone, I let loose a string of profanity that made even her blush. This is the woman who uses four-letter words in job interviews and to describe puppies.

"What? You've been in a wreck?" she said.

I was about to run my car off the road, but I hadn't crashed yet. Instead, I had just discovered that one of two listenable radio stations in G-Vegas (96.7 WBZT, The Buzzard) was about to switch formats. The jock sounded like he no longer need a strap and was promising that the big news was coming on Christmas day. Despite the fact that the station was biding the time in the interim by playing the Pointer Sisters, I knew what was coming. Indeed, I checked an industry message board when I got home.

Inspirational Top 40? When was the last time anything in the Top 40 inspired you?

I discovered demise of decent free radio as I drove around on one final Christmas shopping run. It occurred to me when I left that Christmas time would be a very easy time to engage in adultery. This morning, I was able to leave the house without telling my wife where I was going or when I would be back. When she called to inquire about lunch, she told me what she'd like to eat. "But that's probably not convenient to where you are," she said, obviously looking for a little hint. I didn't give it up.

When I got home with her sandwich, I told her about my adultery theory.

"I'm glad you've thought this out," she said.

Obviously, my attempt at holiday humor was lost. I really should get in the spirit of things here. And what better than Inspirational Top 40, right?

While eating my sandwich, I perused the news and discovered that Texas has gone and done it again. The legislature is about to impose a $5 per customer charge on strip club patrons. Now, I haven't been to a strip club in years (except to play poker, of course), but this seems a little more than unconstitutional to me. Like most sin taxes out there, the revenue from this one is going to a good cause--in this case to help rape victims. Still, it's really dangerous to start legislating morality, and further punitively taxing that which the lawmakers can't eliminate. The story linked quotes a constitutional expert as saying, "Laws like this would expose any unpopular industry to punitive taxes. It could be abortion clinics."

Well, that would be a really solid argument, but for the fact that many people who don't approve of strip clubs would probably be behind the taxation of abortion clinics as well. Perhaps a better way to test it would be to assign a $5 surcharge to listeners of an Inspirational Top 40 station.

Either way, I'm certain of this: The music in the strip clubs is better.

And you want to be my latex salesman...

It's a smoky room with a big screen TV, leather couches, and a poker table. It's where I spend one night a week with a collection of salesmen, developers, engineers, retirees, and dentists. It is where, if only for a few hours a week, we are men. It is a place where we can tell dirty jokes, sling some cards, and talk about the one guy at the table who once hired a hooker and ended up giving her a massage.

Deep down, though, we are romantics. The married among us talk about our kids, our wives, and how we do our bests to be good husbands. Take for instance the one man who bought his wife a laundry list of Christmas presents that ended with, in his words, "A new set of tits."

You know, romance.

"Quite a gift," I said, "I only bought my wife new eyes." Then I made a self-deprecating comment about how my wife can now see how inadequate I really am in the bedroom.

The host sought to comfort me. "She already knew," he said.

I am happy with the more intimate side of life with my wife and can't ask for anything more. She doesn't need any plastic surgery help and she is as forgiving as any woman can be when it comes to having to spend the rest of her life with my mess of a body. Still, I often wonder how long a woman in her thirties will put up with my aging, wrecked form.

That's my way of explaining how I--out of sheer, morbid curiosity and nothing more, I assure you--I ended up clicking through a web ad and running into Dr. Al Sears. I'm not even 100% sure what he has to offer, because I barely got past his header graphic.



Dr. Al Sears has his own website and seeks to instruct men over 40 how to reclaim their manhood. Whoever is behind it, whether it be Al himself or some other ad genius, is spending no small amount of money to pimp this plan online.

I ask this: If Dr. Al had spent $10 more on his ad campaign, would somebody have told him that the first step in selling his product is taking his picture off the web page. Or, at the very least, shave the damned 'stache.

Now, I'm no Adonis. I'm barely good looking enough to get my kid to give me a goodnight hug. The dog only licks my face if I've shaved. I'm brazen enough to put my picture on the top of this web page, but I'm not going to tell you I can help you make your sex life better. Even if you put M.D. behind my name, people are not going to buy into my inverted pile driver experiments. And yet, Dr. Al is spending untold amounts of money to put his face on a web page that promises to allow you to "have enough stamina to play golf in the morning, go for a jog in the afternoon... and still make love to your wife or lover at night!"

I wouldn't trust the guy to change my oil, let alone talk to me about my dipstick.

Dr. Al should take a page from the Oprah-iffic success of the guy in the picture below, self-reported badboy Steve Santagati. Even if he is full of mincemeat, he's going to sell his book because he is attractive enough to make my wife shift around under her laptop.



Mind-blowing as it is, there are people who will get past Dr. Al's face, scroll down through his page, and eventually buy his books and self-improvement plan. Still, I can't get over the belief that the last time Dr. Al had sex was the early 80s blockbuster, "White Bun Busters."

Regardless, I'll have something to talk about at the next poker game--as long as my copy of "12 Secrets to Virility" gets here in time for Christmas.

Faking it

These days, it's rare for the wife and I to go out for a good meal. Unless there is a shark hanging from the ceiling, a hostess with a packet of crayons, or a giant mouse running around the joint, we don't tend to go out for dinner as much as we did in the past. It's hard to enjoy a five course meal and a cup of good coffee while a three year old shoots drinking straw wrappers at the adjacent table.

Saturday, we were able to head out to a place recommended by some fellow bloggers. American Grocery sated our need for something above the traditional fare offered by places with kids menus. I had venison--so fresh and rare, I imagine it was plucked from the nearby woods that morning--in a fig demi glace. I also ate organ meat, but that's another story for a different day.

When time arrived for the dessert course, the wife decided on some homemade doughnuts stuffed with mocha cream. Though our friends were there, talking and enjoying saying panna cotta in a thick Italian accent, it was impossible to miss what started happening to the woman I married. With a touch of mocha cream on her lip, she let loose an ever so quiet moan. Her body shuddered. Her eyes may or may not have rolled up into the back of her head.

Yep, there it was. I privately raised my coffee toward the kitchen and thought, "My compliments to the pastry chef." I didn't learn until later that the pastry chef was named Susan. The implications and possibilities were boundless, but left for another time.

***

Anthony Bourdain once wrote about the--if not always sensual--sexual nature of cooking and eating. By definition, he contends agreeing to eat a meal cooked by someone else is a submissive act, one giving up any illusion of control. You open your mouth and let someone else slip something inside. It's the concession of power for the pure sensual pleasure of letting someone else do while you enjoy.

I like to be in the kitchen. It's a creative and therapeutic outlet. It is especially gratifying when, after a few hours with knives, herbs, and meats, I get to watch someone really enjoy the food. It is akin to the satisfaction of another creative and experimental outlet that takes place in another room in the house. A job well done is a job well done, if you you know what I mean.

Marriage can be a tricky thing, though. After years and years of eating the same meals prepared by the same cook, there is an unintentional routine and expectation that arrives at dinner time. My wife knows the meats, the rubs, and how long it's going to take for the meal to be finished. It's the type of thing that leads a guy to experimentation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, though, it ends with my wife slowly placing malformed rice noodles onto her tongue and forcing a "this is good, honey" from her abused mouth.

There, dear friends, lies the rub. If cooks are the dominant types, they like to believe they have done good, that they have given pleasure, that their toil and art served some greater good. They like to see animated pleasure, and in its absence, at least like to know they have gotten your tastebuds off. For some folks, it's enough to hear, "This is good." Others, like me, like to really believe it.

Indeed, the routine and familiarity of marriage goes both ways. I generally know whether my wife is enjoying something or merely tolerating it. I use the word "generally," because, despite really enjoying the process of pleasure, I am never 100% confident.

That's right. I never know for sure if she is...faking it.

***

A home eater has to walk a very thin line when dealing with a semi-confident cook. Being overly critical of a meal or the one who cooks it could result in a complete loss of confidence that turns into tentative cooking (a tragedy in itself) or a complete abandonment of the kitchen altogether. However, being too careful about the cook's feelings and feigning enjoyment is even worse.

Let's go back to the bedroom (he says as if we ever really left). I think we can all agree that it's pretty clear when a man is satisfied. Moreover, it's not the hardest thing in the world to accomplish that goal. Give him a big enough burger and a basket of fries, if you will, and by and by, he's going to walk away happy. A woman, however, is a fine diner. Something from the drive thru just ain't gonna cut it. Furthermore, figuring out whether the lady's epicurean needs were met is as difficult as reading a french menu through a napkin. She may have acted like she enjoyed it, but there is always a lingering doubt as to whether she enjoyed it.

There are times, of course, when it's pretty clear. Saturday night, as my wife's mouth slacked and she shimmied in her chair at the taste of the mocha cream, Susan the Pastry Chef had obviously scored one for the good guys. Down the table, however, I couldn't get read on how much pleasure Cheryl was getting from her goat cheese gnocchi. Her husband probably knew whether she enjoyed it, but I was at a loss. When she shared a piece with me, I felt a familiar tingle in the good places, so I had to assume Cheryl liked it as well. She said it was good, but I would never know if she was faking it.

We go to restaurants because there is no commitment. The chefs are the pros. You can usually assume you're going to walk away satisfied, but there is no risk of hurt feelings if you don't like the food. You're only out the cost of the meal, rather than the potential hurt feelings and marital strife of not liking your partner's cooking. What's more, when the server asks if everything is alright, you can fake it without longterm consequences.

At home, though, faking it is the worst possible temptation. In the face of a sub par meal, efforts to make your cooking spouse feel good about what he's prepared can only lead to one thing: more sub par meals. As it is with the time spent in the martial bed, a marriage beset by gastronomic dissatisfaction is not one you want to lead.

So, friends, when you feel the urge to say, "This is a good meal," when, in fact, you'd rather have had KFC, just don't do it. Faking it is the path to a lifetime of of wishing you'd ordered takeout and a couple of items from the Adam and Eve catalog.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to run. This is the first night in nearly three weeks that I'll be able to go to bed with my wife and I have to make a stop at American Grocery for some of that mocha cream. I wonder if Susan the Pastry Chef has plans?

It's Science

I think back to the first time I saw my wife. I had this sense that she was it. She was smart, driven, and creative. It only helped that she walked around in clothes that showed off her hip bones and occasionally wore silver necklaces that set off her cleavage in such a way that I spent about nine months trying to make my shower colder (hint: dry ice and a box fan). Eventually, she acquiesced and we became mates for life.

God bless, Science. For, if it had not been for those hip bones and well-accented chest-parts, I probably would've ended up with some By George's bimbo who couldn't diagram a sentence in five seconds. At least, that's what Science tells me.

I gotta hand it to a group of researchers, the Associated Press, and CNN. They have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that men prefer hot women over chicks with hairy moles and a club foot. One of the hottest stories of the day on CNN is a rip-and-read from the AP which begins, "Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks."

I applaud the scientific effort. If we are to understand how far we have evolved from monkey-types who will hump a lemur if it winks at them right, we must understand what inside us drives us toward our future monkey-business mates. Sure, there are some people who would say that proof that we focus on good looks only goes to deny our consciousness and lumps us with the atavistic chronic masturbators. Thank goodness, Science is around.

I'll admit. I was curious. After all, if there is something in science that can explain to me why I like to look at hot women, I'd like to memorize it so I can recite it verbatim the next time my wife catches me lingering over the pages of Wicked Chops on a Friday night.

"Honey, pay no attention to Jessica Alba or how cold it must be in that room. It's Science. Just ask CNN."

So, verily, I clicked with all speed onto the headline "Men want hot women, study confirms" on CNN, expecting to find a well-documented, well-researched, irrefutable piece of scientific evidence to explain why I have my Netvibes Google Image Search permanently set to Scarlett Johansson. I was not disappointed. The second paragraph read:

Researchers led by Todd report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."

I rose in a cheer to celebrate the Darwinian defense. Gotta love me some Darwin. Now, I said to myself, just show me the science!

I am no scientist. My education on the scientific method comes from a real bastard named Richard Summers ("Otis, you are a failure and won't achieve anything.") and a few tired teaching assistants at the University of Missouri. And, to be fair, I wasn't listening very hard. However, somewhere in my learning I recall something about control groups, data collection, and representative samples. Which is why, dear friends, I was a little put off by the data points for the assertion that men like hot women.

The study that has made it into a scientific journal, the Associated Press, and CNN consisted of the following: 26 men and 20 women.

In Munich.

Germany.

Apparently, the white coats put a group of men and women ranging in age from the nubile 26-year-olds to the crotchety 40-year-olds into a room and watched them speed date for three to seven minutes at a time.

In Munich.

Germany.

And thus was born the confirmation that men prefer hot women. Or, at least, that 26 men in one European country prefer hot women when they only get to talk to them for five minutes.

I conducted a couple of similar studies recently and found that men like to gamble (study based on survey taken from 30 men at underground card room), women prefer wine to beer (based on survey taken from two women at a recent BBQ), and all South Carolina women look good in bikinis (based on looking out my window at a neighbor doing yard work several years ago). Not content to focus my study on stateside phenomena, I also branched out to Monte Carlo (all people in Monte Carlo are arrogant) and Austria (all the water in Austria smells like rotten eggs). Under the scientific principles outlined by the above-mentioned researchers, it doesn't matter much that my study was based on four bartenders in Monte Carlo and one small river in Baden, Austria.

There is probably some staff writer at the Tonight Show currently sitting in his office and coming up with lines for Leno like "A study out of Germany confirms that men prefer good looking women. (Pregnant pause to allow audience to formulate their own feeble punchline) Well, duh! Kevin, were you part of this study?"

That's what this kind of news is all about. It's a way to keep junk scientists in good grant money, keep the news stations in fluffy kicker pieces, and keep the late night comedians flush with throwaway jokes to fill 20 seconds of a monologue. Beyond that, it's not going to help me explain to my wife why I don't take off my sunglasses when we go to the pool and why I almost rolled the family car over the other day when driving by Bob Jones University (you wanna talk about hot women...). No, my wife will say, "Twenty-six German men prefer hot women and this is how you expect me to accept the $600 pay-per-view bill?"

No, my wife is smarter that that. And that is why I think she's the hottest chick outside of Munich.