Friday, April 02, 2010

a little incompatibility is the spice of life (Friday's Sunday's Poem/Hot Actress 48)

I Do, I Will, I Have
by Ogden Nash


How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,

it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

____________________________________________________________

About the poem: Ogden Nash seems to have written about me and Sweetie before me and Sweetie ever existed. Except that I always feel guilty and get up to get her hairbrushes off the window (metaphorically speaking) and then I go buy her a frosted sugar cookie to show her I love her.

(And then she goes and figures out how to open up the bathroom door that was locked from the inside somehow, even though I didn't think it was possible.)

About The Hot Actress: One thing Nash left out is that in some marriages, the wife also suggests hot actresses for the husband to put on his blog -- like how Sweetie suggested "Jill Goodacre-Connick." Way back on March 5, 2010, she emailed me this: "you need to add Jill Goodacre-Connick to the list.... she is gorgeous!"


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

See I was right, she is GORGEOUS!