Going after an intentional laugh is much harder than it looks. Do it right and everyone laughs, and pays no mind to how the sausage was made. Do it wrong, and you’re just this guy complaining loudly at the world. You might as well grab your cardboard and Sharpie and head down to the corner if that’s all you’ve got, because no one wants to hear the jokes that almost were. The equation is tragedy plus time equals comedy, but if you drain the barrel too soon, you just get an old man screaming incoherently about his lawn from the balcony of his fancy downtown loft. I’ve got tragedies in high-yield savings accounts, and I’ve got self-doubt in long-term bonds, but I’ve noticed that when I try to make an early withdrawal, the penalties are outrageous! Maybe a pity chuckle, but that’s about it. And now I’ve wasted a truly epic story wherein I look completely ridiculous on a mere chortle, at best. Of course, if you wait too long, your metaphors get all sorts of intermixed, and what may have only been worth a brief guffaw, now tastes like bitter vinegar.  There’s a lesson to be learned from all of this, but let’s be honest: it’s still early in the morning, and I’m just amazed that I am ambulatory and coherent enough to have kept on topic for an entire paragraph.

The humour which I am best at is of the self-deprecating sort, the type which I once used to try and woo the ladies. Having been with my wife for almost nine years, this is not a skill set that I’ve been able to consistently maintain over time, mainly because I don’t believe that my wife would appreciate me trying to build a harem. Actually, I’m kind of with her on that. I’ll take the high road here, and set aside the jokes about how living with one woman is more than sufficient for my daily recommended intake of nagging (not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to afford a place large enough to house all of their shoes), and instead say that there is only one of me to go around, and that I’m inclined toward sloth, so really, I don’t think it would be advantageous to advertise the fact to that many people all at once. Disappointing potential mates isn’t something that you tend to want to include on your resumé. That isn’t to say I haven’t flirted over the years. Ribald jokes have a way of making the day fly by, and alleviate the sheer boredom of the workday. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t know if those ladies knew that I was flirting; there’s a real possibility that they may have thought that I was just genuinely funny. I suppose that’s for the best.

I once was in a relationship with two women at the same time. It wasn’t anything secretive or underhanded. Rose, the woman I’d been dating for a couple years decided that she wanted to start playing the field, as I was the only guy that she’d been with since her divorce had been finalized (and that was not my fault). So she did her best to maneuver me into transferring my affections to another young lady, Amy, whom she thought would be more appropriate (and who, for some reason, seemed to want to be with me). It was all cloak and dagger, with the two of them conspiring in the dead of morning whilst I was passed out on the couch. When everything came to light, I handled it in a calm and measured manner, like the sober sort of fellow that I am: I stormed out of the apartment and threw a temper tantrum in the woods for a couple of hours until my pack of smokes ran out. I came back and informed the both of them that I wasn’t some sort of testosteronic plaything that one friend could loan another, and that, while I couldn’t stop my girlfriend from breaking up with me, I sure as hell didn’t intend to hook up with her hand-picked successor. But then my girlfriend (well, at that point, I suppose she was my ex) cheated (and I’m going to leave that one a wide, wide berth), and told me she would only be okay if she knew that I was taken care of.

It wasn’t really Amy’s fault. Rose had backed me into a corner, and I had no alternative, as I was out of smokes, and Rose had the only pack. So I agreed to give it a shot with the girl who seemed to love me, all the while running through escape routes which I could fall back upon as soon as Rose was gone. It never actually occurred to me to give Amy a real chance, or to reevaluate my love for Rose in the face of my dismissal. I was young and sure and angry, and if I have learned anything throughout the years, it’s that that is the secret recipe for success. So I did my best to remain cool and distant while Amy did everything she could to not let the man she loved slip away from her. Her efforts were ultimately futile, and she saw no benefit, but eventually I looked back, and paid attention, and took to heart the lesson that she’d been trying to beat into me: apparently I am deserving of someone who loves me. Go figure.

My separation from Rose didn’t last terribly long, as the man whom she’d been chasing was the type of scum even your hot pool boy can’t get rid of. He’d been happy enough to take her for her money, as well as certain other… offered valuables, but had no intention of ever leaving his wife behind, or magically transforming into even the most rudimentary human being. Rose spent three months trying to chase him, a blitzkrieg of failed seduction, before finding me one day and apologizing, asking me to take a break from Amy so that I might make her “feel beautiful again.” Who was I to argue? The woman who I’d wanted to grow old with (though, to be fair, she had a bit of a head start) had come back to me, asking me kiss away all of the hurt which she’d been forced to suffer when she took a chance and cast me aside. The worst part was that I actually felt better after, at least until she said that she was going back to Eastern Washington to stay a while longer with her mom.

In Rose’s absence, I did my best to try and be a little more attentive to the woman who never sought to use me. I had the tiniest notion of eventual wisdom starting to poke up through my subconscious like a blackhead, and every now and then realized that I had a chance to spare her the pain which I had felt, but most of the time I was still wrapped up in my own self-pity, and we wound up suffering together. See what I meant about comedy taking a turn? I had a humorous take on a painful time going, and then it just slipped a gear, and now I’ve gone all melancholy. If I were to take my own advice from 1,100 words ago, I should start prepping up a sign which reads “LISTEN TO ME WHINGE ON ABOUT THAT TIME WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND DIDN’T KNOW BETTER.” On the flip side I could scrawl, “WILL BE CAUTIONARY TALE FOR $$$!” Actually, I kind of want to do that now. Stupid Batmart, not understanding sarcasm. Or irony, apparently.

I’ve skipped ahead now to a couple days after Rose came back. There was an awesome morning which included activities that most guys hope will happen to them, and another day involving a game of tennis where I was, somehow, the ball. Eventually I plan to write the story of these years, so if you really want the skinny, you’ll just have to wait. Let’s pretend this is a family-friendly blog, in that occasionally, members of my family read it. What came to pass was the most surreal experience of my entire life (more so than shopping at FoodMax whilst on mood-altering substances, or telling my son’s teacher (the one responsible for his instruction in English) to speak to me in Spanish so that I could understand her): I found myself living in a polyamorous relationship. And for the first three weeks it was amazing. There was a better-than-average chance that someone wouldn’t have a headache on any given day, and I ate so many sandwiches that I began to tire of them. I thought that somehow I had shown the older generation that their binary love connections were outmoded, and that I had found a better way. My ego, which at the best of times is so large as to be unwieldy, had been inflated to monstrous proportions. It was only a matter of time until the other shoe would drop.

Imagine, if you will, a red stiletto thrown downward at a passerby from the top of your local Walmart (I realize that this seems like a plausible occurrence in the world of Tex Batmart, so I feel obligated at this point to mention that this is a metaphor, and not something which actually happened to me). When women live together they wind up involuntarily sharing certain things: makeup, bath products, their boyfriend’s razor, etc. They tend to also want to do things with each other, such as shopping and letting me know I left the toilet seat up again. But there is one more thing that they always seem to do together, and it almost killed me. I fear to name it, lest its power be renewed, but suffice it to say, the fourth week of our lives as an unconventional realization of love was to be our last. Just like Superman and Doomsday brought Metropolis down around them in the winter of 1992, two superpowered forces came to blows during that autumn of 2000. Rose and Amy had been a bit standoffish lately, trying to come to terms with what it meant to live like we’d been living, but that final week of September, they finally found common ground and turned their sights on me.

Afterwards, they asked me where I’d taken off to for those 3-5 days, and why I’d left in such a hurry. I answered only that a man should be careful what he wishes for, and then, judging their reactions, ran away again.

Wow, it looked pretty grim there for a moment, didn’t it? I managed to pull it out, though. I just wanted to mention that though I have included some gender-based humour, this anecdote is firmly based in fact, and the only way I’ve managed to come to terms with this difficult time in my life is to turn it into an amusing narrative. Rose and Amy (probably not their real names) were wonderful (at times) and complicated people, and the sides of them I’ve shared have been shown for comedic purposes only. Lord knows what either of them would write as a rebuttal.

In other news, I paused the story that I had been working on last week, and started up something completely different. The new project is going well, and I’ll be jumping into that as soon as I am finished here. I want to thank everyone who has been reading this over the past couple of months, and ask that if you have enjoyed this blog, to share it with your friends.

Thanks everyone, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

-Tex