A Present For My Gay Male Readership And For Someone Else Who's Name Just Now Escapes Me...
I have a pretty good marriage. I know this to be true because me and some of my housewife friends all took "Do You Have A Red-Hot Marriage?!" quiz in this month's Cosmo and I scored the highest. I didn't get the highest rating on the quiz ("¡Muy Calienté!"), but I did get the second highest ("Hot-Cha-Cha!") which is a respectable showing. Poor Melinda from two doors over, not only did she score the lowest in our group ("Polar Bear's Tits!"), but it also suddenly dawned on her that her husband is gay. It sounds bad, but it was something of a relief to the rest of us. I mean come on, the man has three gym memberships and he drives a scooter. Wake up, Melinda.

As a Cosmo-approved expert, I feel justified sharing with you all the secrets of a good marriage. It sounds trite, but the central pillar of any good marriage is compromise. That's right, straight out of Ann Landers or some shit, but it's so true. I'm not just talking about compromise in the sense of negotiated give and take, I'm talking about compromise in the sense of "weakening" or "undermining". In order to remain married for any length of time, you have to be willing to compromise your sense of ambition, your personal worth, your integrity and even--when the mood strikes your spouse (and it will) to "spice things up" with a trapeze in your bedroom--your personal safety. The goal of any good marriage is to make it to the end, maybe a little bit of a beaten down shell of your former self, but with the calming satisfaction of knowing that the other sucker died first.

Ha, no, I kid. Actually, negotiation and compromise take place all the time without even realizing it. For instance, I like to watch me some soccer. I do, I enjoy it. Maybe you've heard. Anyway, you know who else likes to watch soccer? Mrs. Pops. She does. Score for me, right?

Well, she does like to watch soccer, but the unspoken negotiation--the compromise--is that I must accept that her motivations for watching the game are slightly different from mine. I like the pace and the skill and the artistry of the sport. She likes sweaty guys in really good shape running around in front of her for 90 minutes, at the end of which they typically take their shirts off.

In the course of the recently-completed World Cup 2006, I got out of it lots of hours of soccer-watching (and kid-neglecting, which I'm always doing anyway) and she got... well, I can only show you.

Let me set the scene first: we're watching an early-round match together, pretty typical stuff when all of a sudden, Mrs. Pops audibly gasps. With zero regard for the fragile tissue-sculpture that is my doughy, non-washboard-ab ego, she grips my arm and says breathlessly "Who is that?"

"That" was Portuguese and Manchester United midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo.


I tried my best to fight back. I told her he was born in 1985. At first she went "Ewww!" and kind of laughed it off, but then she did some quick math and went "Ooohh..." Twenty-one this year, our Cristiano Ronaldo. Legal in all countries.

If you'll remember last year on this date, I told you it was Mrs. Pops' birthday--as it is again today, coincidentally--and favored you with some pictures of her then-inappropriate-obsession, another soccer player, USA's Landon Donovan. Her tastes seem to have broadened as Mr. Donovan is now, sadly, old news as my wife develops a hankerin' for some spicy Mediterranean.

Here's maybe a little more of him than she would want to see...

...or is it?!

I know, you're probably asking yourself: "Pops, why do you do this? Aren't you threatened by this?"

To that I must answer: Ha! Yeah, a little.

I mean NO! No, not at all. And why not? Because I also have this picture:

Look, he cries. He is no threat to me. My wife knows full well that I don't cry. That's because I'm a real man. Real men are dead inside, emotionally. There's nothing this Cristiano Ronaldo has that I can't offer my wife.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have crunches to do.

Happy birthday, lady.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:15 AM