MATERIAL CULTURE IN MARRIAGE

 

Material culture before marriage is one thing, after marriage another.

It starts with a ring and sometimes that’s it.

When relationships don’t work out, there’s usually a reason unless someone dies.

This is what happened before I got married:

A nice girl with wife-potential thought I was the shit.

That was one thing we agreed on. We were mid-twenties when everyone is the shit.

Then she saw what kind of shit, the kind that doesn’t like surprises.

 

We went to a flea market, as people do, and she found a ring she said was perfect for me.

The seller was a guy who traveled to find stuff people like.

Material culture here meant a silver ring with a turquoise setting.

She liked it, I liked it, but we were just shopping.

We asked the man to save the ring for us until next week.

When we came back he said he sold it.

The heartless bastard sold the most important ring I’d ever seen until then? Uh oh.

While there are few reasons to ‘go off’ for normal people, which I considered myself at the time, I went off.

 

The Ring Conversation As I Recall It

You knew we were coming back. You wouldn’t even let us give you money to hold it.

That’s the problem with people like you. To you it’s just a ring with a price tag.

Metal and stone.

But to us it meant more than it’s parts.

Didn’t matter to you though, did it? You sold it like a ring pimp.

You’re the worst kind of flea market man, a hustler with no conscience.

I’m disgusted.

 

I probably swore.

The guy kept staring at my girl.

 

What are you looking at, pal? You’ve got enough problems right here and you’re about to get more if I need to ring you up.

 

The Knuckle Sandwich Rings

 

The more I said the worse it got.

I was going after this guy to show my former future wife how much I cared.

Turns out good women don’t appreciate a violence baiting a-hole as much as they could.

 

I didn’t say “Fight me,” to the guy, at least not the exact words.

I was working him for a self-defense claim and it looked promising.

She pulled me away just as things were developing.

On the way back to the car she put the ring in my hand.

 

Former fiancé: I bought it last week when you were looking at something else. I didn’t know I was giving it to such a jerk.

Then the icing on the dog turd: My mother was right about you.

I was the jerk? I gave her the ring to prove it.

“Here’s something for your mother to consider the next time she runs her mouth and you listen to her. Divorced women always have the best relationship advice.”

 

Material Culture Jerk

 

Now I was a jerk and there was no doubt.

That was the beginning of the end of our plans together.

What were those plans? I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention.

What I did know was her dad lived alone in a small apartment packed with electronic stuff engineers use.

Maybe that was the plan for me, too? But I wasn’t an engineer. Or married.

When we talk of material culture in marriage we’re talking about meaning.

What is it when we talk about sneaky material culture?

Call it a learning lesson.

She married some guy and dumped him.

I married a woman who still wonders if she made the right decision thirty-seven years in.

We like to keep things first-date fresh.