More on The Grump

Because I just want to throw things every time I think about this.

Since I’ve known Carol, she has had pretty long hair, most of the way down her back. Although I didn’t think this was a particularly good look for her at her age, it was none of my business and never said anything.

A couple weeks ago Carol arrived at the bus stop in the morning (the Grump had dropped her off) with short hair. I mean, a good 12″-14″ gone. It was just brushing her shoulders now, with some barely detectable layering worked in. Not a great cut, but I know she couldn’t afford a high-end stylist so like most of us has to take her chances with those no-appointment-needed places.

In explaining the sudden change, Carol said, “Last night while we were sleeping The Grump (no she doesn’t call him that) rolled over onto my hair and I couldn’t move. So yesterday when he picked me up (from work) we started driving someplace, and I asked him where we were going. He said it was a surprise.”

So without asking her, he drove her to get her hair cut at one of those strip mall hair cut places. What a guy.

I ask you. And yet somehow it never occurs to her to tell him “No, I don’t want to do that.” Maybe it’s due to her religious beliefs, and feels he’s head of the household and she shouldn’t argue with him. Which makes me want to throw more things. I don’t really know, that’s pure speculation. She’s never actually said anything to that effect. Maybe it’s just easier to go with it than get into a huge argument. But she clearly wasn’t all that happy with the way the cut turned out. She kept fussing with it, saying she didn’t like the layering, and it wouldn’t lay the way she wanted, etc.

I have never in my life known any woman who let a man tell her when or where to get her hair cut. I would have had to kill him, but that’s me. But, I kept my mouth shut about it. If she’s content to live this way, who am I to mouth off and make her feel unhappy? She’s not going to leave him at this point in her life, so why bother.

But I will never understand it.

The Grump, or: Why I Don’t Need You to Find Me a MAY-UN

 

This is kind of long because I feel it necessary to illustrate fully the character of the titular subject.

I mentioned one of my fellow bus riders, Carol, in the ghost post. Carol’s been married to her husband since the dawn of time. It’s not always rosy between them, in fact for awhile they seemed to be going through a bit of a rough patch judging by Carol’s demeanor at the bus stop in the morning. She vaguely alluded to the fact that I was single and sometimes she wished she was (she was pretty cranky that day). I really think she was angry enough at him during those days that, had she had the means, she would have left him.

It was a long time before I met her spouse – let’s see, what shall we call him? Let’s call him The Grump – and honestly, the woman is a saint for living with him all these years.  She’s even told me that none of their neighbors like him and avoid being outside if he’s home and outside anywhere.

Back when I first met her, Carol was driving a car borrowed from a family member. The Grump was driving a spiffy new rig (“rig” of course being redneck-speak for a pickup truck) they had bought all shiny and new not long before. Well, eventually the day came when The Grump lost his job, and that of course led to them losing the truck. Not long after, the family member whose car Carol had been driving needed their car back. So they were down to an old Ford Explorer that needs some TLC from a mechanic. With The Grump out of work, he had the use of the Explorer all day, and was driving Carol to the bus stop most days. Many days he’d just take her all the way to work. I think it was an excuse for him to get out of the house. Despite The Grump’s lack of employment, and Carol having no wheels to get herself around, The Grump spends HUNDREDS of dollars a month on all kinds of crap (just the other day it was a box of assorted wood for I’m not sure what that he had picked up at some garage or estate sale), not to mention all the gas driving around and up to Seattle for a “Tool Club”. It’s a group of old geezers who like to buy and sell antique tools. Was ever a club more aptly named?

The Grump is a member, and Carol has to go along and collect the dues and spend the day wherever the meeting is because The Grump “likes to spend time with her.” So she sits and reads a book most of the day while he’s off looking at items with the other grouchy old goats.

And they just laid out a fortune for new brakes on the Explorer, when it was discovered they were down to metal-on-metal. Carol wasn’t sure how they were going to buy food after that, but by god, The Grump is always out buying more crap at garage or ‘estate’ sales.

Since The Grump has been working a little lately and interviewing for jobs (and therefore of course he gets the car), Carol has had no way to get to the bus stop, so I’ve been picking her up in the morning and driving her to the park-n-ride where we catch the bus, then taking her home again in the afternoon from the park-n-ride. She doesn’t live far so it’s no problem. She and The Grump have often given me rides home from work to avoid having to take the bus on days when The Grump comes to give Carol a ride. This all sounds great, except then I’m subjected to country music in their car, and having to listen to The Grump regale me with his tales of accidents and run-ins with the police and his opinions on everything. If it costs the public any money, he’s against it. Laws seem to exist only to suck money out of people and be a hindrance to life. He beat up a bus driver once who’d hit his car, but of course The Grump was held at fault for ‘violating the civil rights’ of the driver (who evidently was black). He can tell you that seat belts cost as many lives as they save. He can tell you of the corruption of the police, and city building code scams designed to suck money out of honest citizens.

So you see why I call him The Grump.

Anyway, I ended up getting a ride home with them a couple of days ago. I was being quiet as I normally am in their car while The Grump holds forth on his grouchy tale of the day, when suddenly the conversation turned to a  member of their tool  club. As Carol tells it, this tool club guy is super-polite (a foreign concept to most of these old buzzards, it seems) and all the wives of the men in this club are trying to hook him up with their young daughters. The Grump says they rib him about being “A-mish” because he’s so nice. So then he suggests I need to meet this guy.

“Why?” sez I.

“So you can get free membership in the club,” sez Carol.

“Why do I want to join this club?” I ask.

She laughs and shakes her head. “You don’t.”

Damn straight, I’m thinking.

That was the end of the conversation but this made me realize they must have been talking amongst themselves, deciding I need a MAY-UN in my life (because really, who doesn’t want to be miserable and make excuses for a foul spouse?) and thought up this little scheme to match-make me and Mr.  “A-mish” dude.

Now, let’s just leave aside for a moment the fact that this would be a TERRIBLE match, and focus on how people can not get their heads around the idea that a single woman could be happy with her life. I don’t have to put up with anybody’s bad tempers or moodiness, or smoking, drinking, drugs, gambling, or spending money on crap they can’t afford. Why is it people can’t stand for a woman to be single? Why does being single = failure for a woman?

Carol opines on a regular basis about how every weekend they’re busy doing stuff that The Grump wants to do and she never gets time to herself or to do what she wants.

“Because he likes to spend time with me,” she says. Same reason he drives her to work, instead of letting her take the bus.

Now some of you may be thinking it’s charming that he still wants to spend time with her like this after so many years of marriage, but I’m seeing this as a control issue. She doesn’t even like to take a day off during the week because if she just stays home to relax or catch up on things, he’ll be around bugging her to go do things and she won’t be able to do anything she wants to do.

At my last job, Overseer (whom some of you will recall) even tried to give me advice for finding a MAY-UN. He informed me one day, unbidden, that his wife advocated making a list of desirable qualities that you want in a partner. Somehow this would set events in motion throughout the cosmos to manifest whatever you were looking for. And yet people say they don’t believe in magic. Trust me, I shut him down very quickly on the subject.

I understand relationships are a series of compromises, but they never seem to be equal. I don’t think Carol and her husband are an uncommon example. But, I never say anything critical about The Grump or their marriage, it’s not my place. I simply choose not to live my life that way. I wish other people would extend the same courtesy to those of us who are, for whatever reason, single. And I sure as hell don’t need people like The Grump interfering in my personal life.

Being Single

This was prompted by an article in the New York Times, about why men can’t stand to be alone.

I’ll admit the article is a little confusing to me. First the writer said men feel they need help when they’re down and out whereas women get on with things. She also says men are hard-wired to feel danger,  but women aren’t. I can’t get on board with that. Most of the personal safety tips you see and hear on the news and elsewhere are directed at women (don’t walk alone at night, have a friend walk you to your car, park in a well-lighted area, be aware of your surroundings, carry pepper-spray, take self-defense classes, etc.). I strongly disagree that women “do not walk around alert for danger.” If you as a woman don’t, you should. Women, she says, are ‘hard-wired to read the signals that keep us from danger”, yet a sentence above that says women don’t walk around alert to danger. Either we’re alert to it and reading the signals, or we’re not.

Men I’ve talked to about this issue have NEVER incorporated those things into their existences. It is a foreign idea to them that they should ever feel threatened when out in public. They are men. They are strong. They can handle whatever comes their way. They’re not even aware of the safety precautions I mentioned above. It’s never occurred to them. The article makes it sound as if men walk around frightened all the time if they’re alone (i.e., single).

But I agree that men can’t stand to be alone. This may seem counterintuitive, since women in their younger years are the ones looking to get married and settle down, not men. The switch comes after people have been in a long-term relationship. I’ve seen it, and experienced it, first-hand. Most women do not remarry after divorce (yours truly is a case in point. My ex had hooked up with someone before our divorce. He’s since moved on to someone else. I’m still single). Men, however, can’t seem to remarry fast enough. They want someone to take care of them, do the child-rearing, the cooking, the baking, the cleaning, the shopping. I watched one manager where I work get involved with someone before he divorced his first wife. The new Mrs. Manager now does all those things for him (although she still works as well).

A second co-worker whose marriage had a spectacular melt-down, was terrified of being alone with his kids. As we were chatting about his situation one day he pointed out how Mr. Manager had his then-amour to help him out, and he didn’t know how he could manage on his own. He also hooked up with someone not long after his divorce was final (if not before, still not clear). They are now married.

Yet a third co-worker who had been divorced for a brief period confided to me one day that he wanted to find someone and remarry because who was going to take care of him when he was old? Women outlive men most of the time, and he was probably going to need someone to nurse him in his old age. Hand to god, I am not making this up. This is why men marry. Not for love, or even the sex. They want a nurse-maid. It’s not out of a sense of fear for their personal safety, they want to know who’s going to wipe the drool off their chin when they’re old and incapacitated, should they live that long. I believe that guy is still single, but he’s in another part of the country now so I can’t be sure.

I was on a first date with someone years ago, and one of the first questions he asked as we sat chatting over dinner was was I a good cook. “Are you looking to hire a cook?” I asked. Needless to say, I did not see him again.

Marriage used to be a social construct, two people banding together to survive. One did the nesting, the other did the hunting. It’s hard for one person to do it all. These days it’s more about… well, I’m not really sure. Read an article the other day defending the idea of dating after marriage. Umm… so why get married? So you always have someone to fall back on if you can’t find a date for Friday night? What if the other person does? I’ll never understand that one.

Would I ever get married again? :::grimace::: Not sure.