2183  Off Topic: Mr. Coleman

Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:59:24 -0800
From: luda_r1 <luda_r1@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Off Topic: Mr. Coleman

Ko, your post was very amusing, and made us ladies
look pretty silly. :) However, I rather thought that
men dropped like flies was more as a result of
thinking such as this:

8 SIMPLE RULES FOR DATING MY EX-WIFE

By David Owen
(Reprinted from The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2004, issue)

I share the blame for my divorce. I did a lot of
things wrong in my marriage: worked too hard, cared
too much, made too many sacrifices for my family. Tore
my heart out and left it lying on the kitchen floor so
that anybody who wasn t too busy stabbing me in the
back could stomp it into the no-wax vinyl tiles that
I myself laid down at a savings of more than two
thousand dollars. I am guilty of that and more.

But forget it. Past is past. Let s move on. You are
now dating my ex-wife, and her lawyer, my lawyer, and
a state judge have all informed me in writing that you
have a legal right to do so. So be it. I m not a
blackmailing pickpocket doubletalking divorce
attorney, so I don t know the technicalities. But the
two of us still need to have some kind of ground rules
here.

1. Twenty-two years, pal. That s how long we were
married. You ve been dating her for a month. Tell you
what. In twenty-one years and eleven months, let s you
and me talk again.

2. Despite what you may have been told, I ve got some
self-respect left, and I don t need your face shoved
into my face every time I turn around. From five
o clock on Friday afternoon until two o clock on
Sunday morning, the bar at the Ramade Inn belongs to
me.

3. The oil in the Saturn wagon gets changed every
three thousand miles not five thousand miles, not
seven thousand miles and I don t care what she or
the owner s manual or the guy in the service
department or the Internet says. Three. Thousand. God.
Damned. Miles.

4. The Wiffle ball hanging from the string in the
right hand bay of the garage is where the middle of
the front of the hood of the Saturn wagon should be
pointed when it s parked correctly. Wiffle ball is not
supposed to rest on the hood of the car. It makes
parking easier.

5. The two of you don t walk within a thousand feet of
the golf course or the driving range. Not ever.

6. Before you even ask, let me explain why there s no
cable TV. To install the cable TV, they had to drill a
hole through the house. Hey, fine, so let s get
satellite TV instead. Well, guess what? To install
satellite TV, they have to drill about twenty holes
through the roof. Somebody ought to get the Nobel
Prize for that idea drilling holes through the roof.

7. The band saw in the basement belongs to me. You are
not to use it, you are not to move it, you are not to
put anything on it or let anyone else put anything on
it, including even just one corner of a laundry basket
while person carrying the laundry basket scratches
their nose. I can t remove the band saw from the
basement just yet. For one thing, I don t have a
workshop to put it in anymore, and if you re
interested in knowing why, I suggest you study the
terms of my divorce. For another thing, I assembled
that band saw myself. When I got the box home from
Sears, I thought, Hey, great, I just lift out my
brand-new band saw and start ripping pressure-treated
railroad ties, but guess what? The box contained one
large plastic bag, filled with medium-sized plastic
bags filled with small plastic bags filled with parts
the size of bird shot. Putting that thing together
took three months of the best years of my life, and to
make the blade cut plumb I had to level the legs with
a laser transit that I borrowed from a friend of mine
who s a contractor. So hands the hell off.

8. This should go without saying, but no funny
business. Understood? She s fifty years old, for
crying out loud.


Luda


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