My Other Life

I am a pampered, pampered man. Seriously, it’s pretty disgusting.

One of my worst fears, and it would appear that I have many of them, is to once again be single and alone. It’s not that I don’t do fine by myself, I do quit well. And it’s not that I am afraid to grow old alone, I really have not problem with that as well.

It has more to do that, god help me, I just can’t take care of myself like an adult should. I have no idea why but it is indeed terrifying. For some reason that I will never truly figure out, Hossmom has decided to take pity on me and stay with me for the rest of my life. Sucks for you, great for me.

In a lot of these blogs Hossmom’s role is as the antagonist. The obstacle to be overcome, the protagonist that pushes a story forward. Sometimes she is the voice of reason and sometimes she is a wet blanket trying to keep down our fun. But the closer truth is that she is the glue that holds us all together. Lucky for me, she has a sense of humor and can recognize her role in all this.

After the vasectomy blog she says to me “My dear husband, who is the light of day and the safety at night, all around bug killer and toilet unclogger—you made me appear kind of like Gloria Steinem” As she took her fresh baked apple pie out of the oven and then had 3 more children on the spot, I thought about this. I said “Why, whatever do you mean?”

“You made me sound like a hard core feminist” she said and then made a sign for the bake sale to be put out front.

It was at this time that I decided NOT to mention the fact that she did NOT take my last name when we got married. Or that the re-imaging of our vasectomy conversation was pretty spot on. I then got the thank you cards that she had written the neighbors for being good neighbors and mailed them.

The truth is that without Hossmom I would be dead.

And I don’t mean this in some surreal, overstatement way. I mean very simply that I doubt that I would continue to draw breath without Hossmom watching over me.

Let me give you a visual representation of what it would be like if I were still single and without Hossmom’s ever loving protection.

I would be in some seedy apartment, the kind where the “wrong kind of people” live. There would be crack whores down the block but I would be to afraid to pay any of them for anything. I would be sitting in some rat nasty chair, most likely a lazy boy type of thing. I would have worn ass prints in it from many many years of use. There would be several rips in the leather and in my underwear.

I would be clothed in nothing but said underwear and my junk would be hanging out one of the rips. I would be wearing black socks because they go with tighty whities so well. My chest hair would be filled with crumbs from the personal pan pizza that I would be eating, which just so happens to be resting on my massive gut. I would be drinking a wine cooler. I would be watching a black and white TV, probably something like Bonanza. 13 inch screen baby, that’s how I would roll.

I would have a dog of course. And he would be laying on his back also wearing black socks. He would have mange. I would have mange. There would be flies buzzing around us. We would sit there waiting for the scrambled porn channel to get just a little bit clearer.

We would not be home owners because of that scam we fell into buying Llamas and thus ruined our credit. I would be constantly out of toilet paper. I would never use napkins or paper towels. My version of clean would refer to my soul and spirit and not to the kitchen.

The phone would ring and I would be overjoyed that someone would actually want to talk to me. It would be a telemarketer and I would buy whatever he is selling until he asked for a credit card. I would tell him that we should just do this on a handshake and that a man’s word is his bond. He would try to hang up the phone then but I would whip out MY approved script and ask him questions that are designed to keep him on the phone. He would get pissed and hang up on me and then go home to kill himself with Vodka and Xanex.

I would read about his death in the newspaper that I use for a sheet because I don’t own any sheets myself. Just a crusty old blanket that says Chicago Bears 1985 on it. I would be devastated because my dear, dear friend Charlie couldn’t take life anymore and I know it would be because of me. I would cry and then have a heart attack. As I would never go to the doctor on my own accord, it would have completely neglected any and every vegetable and be very shocked to learn that cheese pizza is not healthy at all.

I would have very high cholesterol because of this which is what caused the heart attack in the first place. I would sit in the hospital worrying about my dog and be equally disappointed to learn that, once I was carted off on the special fat man gurney that can lift a whale, my dog took in with one of the neighborhood crack whores. I would then die of loneliness knowing that my dog prefers the company of Ms. STD Warehouse Lady than to myself.

My funeral would consist of a county burial and the one homeless guy that shows up because of the possibility of free food and the chance to steal my shoes. No flowers would ever be planted on my grave because no one would care and eventually grass and jungle would grow over it and leave me lost, never to be found. It would be as if I never existed. There would be no blog, no glory, no victory.

I have a very vivid imagination.

That is what Hossmom has saved me from. That is the alternative life that I could have chosen rather than getting married. She is my Jesus.

She has bought every stitch of clothing for me for the last 13 years. I have never had to try anything on in a dressing room. And if that is not enough, most mornings she actually lays out my clothes for me in the morning, making sure that my time and my clothes coordinate.

She uses little scissors to cut my eyebrows so that I don’t look like lurch. She will let me know when that nose hair has gotten just a tad bit noticeable. She will make sure I take my cholesterol medication and not stroke out. She will shave my back should I ever ask, without judgment and without throwing up.

She will redress Little Hoss after I put her in a tube top and the pants from her last Halloween costume. She will make sure that we are all tucked in late and night. She will wake me up in the morning for work rather than making me use the alarm because the sound just sets me off wrong.

She lets me lean against her while playing Xbox and never gives me shit about watching football on Sunday. She laughs at my jokes and acts impressed when I lift anything even remotely heavy, like our fat dog.

Now, out of the two lives, which would you choose?