“The truth is I only need them (women) once or twice a week and that’s never good enough (for them) – Guido Maldemarra.
My old friend Guido Maldemarra had never been married.
“I have never had a heart attack either,” Guido quickly retorts,
his explanation, in typical streetwise zen logic.
He thinks he knows all he needs to know
about connubial bliss.
Guido won’t ask a woman to dance
because she might say “Yes”
and the next thing, you’re dating,
pretty soon you start staying over at her place.
Or worse, you notice there are doilies
on your over-sized dark brown Italian leather sectional.
There’s a notice about a protest rally sponsored by Pegasus Nation,
The Politically Correct Lesbian Accountants
Against Knee-Jerk Left Wing Quotas,
stuck to your refrigerator.
With a Happy Face magnet. Then you’re shacked up.
One morning, she makes you some pecan pancakes
and your favorite little smoked sausage
with some bagels from Kornblatt’s.
She’s pours half and half in your coffee
until it’s white,
puts her tongue in your ear,
suddenly, getting hitched,
such a telling image, Guido sighs.
Getting hitched,
like a draft animal,
seems momentarily
like a sane thing to do.
Really likes her tongue in his ear.
You never see sausages again.
“It’s bad for your heart,” she says.
“It’s for your own good,” she says.
Before you can say “the beneficial co-signer
has another sick headache,”
she’s got a better lawyer than you do.
So you only get to wear your favorite
undershorts every other weekend
and you can only see your kids on alternating holidays,
unless they end in a Y.
Like Father’s Day.
Guido says he saves himself all that pain
by not asking the woman
to bossa nova with him in the first place.
He lives alone, so, of course,
he has no nagging habits.
Furniture stays where it is.
He can watch sports whenever he wants.
Can leave the toilet seat up
without somebody
bitching at him.
He didn’t even invite me
to his wedding.
Next time I’m in town
we’re having dinner together.
Him, me and his wife.
This should be
good.