In previous installments we discussed how you must never mention the fact you can no longer have any clothes requiring hangers because every closet in the house is either filled with her clothes or stacked floor to ceiling with storage containers full of shoes. I stressed to you the importance of ugly metal clothes cabinets with locks, waders, and eventually extremely large gun safes.
Now, we have to get to the real reasons behind this. Your stuff must be easily transportable. You are a guy so you are stupid. Nope, I don’t care about that P.h.d. in whatever you have. When you get challenged about that tiny little 6 square feet which is actually yours in your own home, you are going to lash out. You are going to forget all of my good advice about the containers full of shoes bursting from every closet in the place and point them out. Hopefully you have printed out part 2 of this series and think to look at it during a pause in the shouting. Point 3 is coming because odds of your spouse coming to their senses admitting fair is fair are pretty much non-existent. You forgot that thing you were told on your wedding day.
When your bride comes into the place of your wedding she looks down and sees herself. Next she looks up and sees the alter. After that she sees you. Then the subconscious vow made by women throughout history echoes in her head:
I will alter him.
They can’t help themselves. No matter how great a guy you are they are constantly trying to pull you apart and re-assemble you to be the man they want today. Tomorrow you are a fresh box of Legos.
Now we get to the critical portion of this discussion, your stuff.
Stupid guys buy that “special car” and spend more time with it than her. Anything you have to insure or get a title for should not be your stuff. When it comes to getting your stuff out of there you will have at most a few hours, even if your buddies live close by there is only so much which can fit in your vehicles. You cannot deposit your stuff at a buddy’s that’s married. You need to have one of your buddies rent a storage locker in their name to put your stuff in. Pay cash for it! I’m not saying you have to give up the house, I’m saying you have to get the stuff you hold precious and dear out of there and it cannot be anything easily located. That shotgun which was first owned by your great great grandfather and is supposed to be passed down to your son, neither she nor her lawyer are going to care for the divorce. It’s something to be sold for cash.
This brings up another story from my 20-somethings. In fact it happened around the same time I was one of the 7 dwarves. An older consultant working for a different firm got the hots for the firm’s receptionist who collected all of the time sheets. (We didn’t have Internet then.) He married her and for roughly two years all seemed fine. Then he bought that special car, the collectors era Corvette he always wanted. He drove it during the summer months and had some beater for his “winter car.” Fully restored it was his pride and joy. He spent many a sunny day washing, waxing and pampering it.
Well, needless to say the wife had lots of different guys dropping off time sheets every week so she decided to shop for a better deal. I don’t know who did what, I just remember the divorce story was one of legend among IT consultants. There were lawyers and orders and, he still had to come in and hand her his time sheet every week. Bitter does not begin to describe the level of venom.
The only thing he wanted was is Corvette and it was the only thing she would not let him have. He offered the house, retirement account, investments basically everything he had before they got married and then some and she would not give up on that Corvette. The financial and emotional toll of the divorce eventually made him crumble. She got the Corvette. The house was divided between both law firms and the bank holding the mortgage.
Keep in mind they both still worked at the same company and he still had to turn his time sheet in to her. He was on a long term contract at a client site. Back then it was ordinary to get on a 4-7 year long systems development project.
She drove that Corvette year round. Never washed it or changed the oil. Romped it through snow and ice during the winter messing up the fiberglass beyond repair. Every week he had to walk past that car in the parking lot and turn in his time sheet. Every week he saw it in worse and worse shape. Eventually it became an unsalvageable pile of shit and she had to trade it off on a shiny new Oldsmobile Delta 88. It’s a sad thing to see a collector’s era Corvette barely roll over in a parking lot and puke out a cloud of blue oil smoke large enough to kill mosquitoes for miles, but everybody got to watch it.
Oh children, this isn’t just a made up story. I will admit there were aspects I didn’t believe when I first heard it, but everybody told me her name and the firm. I think it is why some contractors refused to do business with the firm. I know I avoided them back in the day.
Less than 2 years after all of this transpired I was sitting on the off-ramp from I-5 (it hadn’t been renamed I-88 yet) to Route 59 with 3000+ of my closest friends waiting for the light to change. About a mile or so back some idiot had run off the road at the edge of the stone quarry and gapers were slowing down to search for decapitated heads. Suddenly I heard a brief screech of tires, glanced into the rear view mirror and braced myself for impact. I got out of my car and walked back to see a blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 with everything in front of the radiator looking mostly destroyed. My 1980 AMC Concord station wagon appeared to only have a crease in the chrome beauty wrap of the bumper. I went to see who hit me and if they were alright. There was a name tag on her suit jacket and it was from that consulting firm. It also had the name I had heard on it. Talking while waiting for a cop she mentioned that she was the receptionist at that firm.
I drove away after getting my accident report and considered myself way luckier than her ex.
In summary
- If you want big stuff never marry.
- If you have children don’t be a puddle of shit, save to pay for them before you have them.
- If you do choose to get married you can only have small stuff easily transported out of the house.
- Never ever mention the shoes.
Heed my warnings. This series is now complete.
