Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored." The gods aren't terribly bored today, but they are sleepy. They went to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show and didn't get to bed until almost 3:00 a.m.
As a parent, I feel it is my responsibility to give my children cultural opportunities. So it was on behalf of my older daughter, The Heir, that I attended Rocky Horror. She's almost 16, and a concerned mom feels that someone that age shouldn't be allowed to go alone to a midnight romp with 300-plus tattooed and otherwise individually decorated persons.
It was refreshing, however, because the assembled seemed to share my opinion of the sitting president. When asked to give him a Rocky Horror salute, they rose as one and shouted ... ummm ... certain common expletives that ought to be hurled with great regularity at this particular head of state.
On the other hand, no one else there seemed to share my enthusiasm for Susan Sarandon as a Supreme Court justice. But perhaps the audience was just reacting to her seminal performance in the film when they repeatedly called her a slut.
Have you seen Rocky Horror Picture Show? It is quite possibly the stupidest movie ever made. But it bonds people. It allows you to sit in a dark theater and express opinions. It presents the notion that perhaps a stray oddball here and there isn't such a bad idea, is perhaps instead a refreshing breeze through the stodgy human race.
If I might be bold enough to monkey with the lyrics of one of the songs:
"Blue tint my world, keep me safe from Republican games!"
I've been hearing for weeks about this gal who planned a 600-guest wedding with nine bridesmaids and then came up missing a day or two before the big event. Turns out she hopped the old Greyhound and took it a couple thousand miles to Vegas.
I used to ride Greyhound a lot when I was a penniless college kid, and my hat is off to that gal for being able to sit on one of those things for a thousand-mile trip. After about the first hour, I'm searching for a barf bag, and by the time I reach my destination, I'm sorry I embarked in the first place. And the longest I ever spent on a bus was from Baltimore to Cleveland. That's not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump, but it ain't Vegas.
But I digress. First of all, what is with these big weddings? Nine bridesmaids? You want nine of your best friends and family to waste hundreds of dollars on some gooey gown they can't ever wear again, buy you a gift (or two, if you have a shower), and devote a day of their lives to your vanity? Six hundred guests? You feed that many people hors d'oeuvres, salad, a main course, dessert, and an open bar, entertain them with music, and rent a space big enough to accommodate them, and you've got ... a fully-equipped double-wide trailer and a nice down payment on a low mileage pickup.
Big weddings are just another corporate boondoggle, one of the many ways the few fleece the pockets of the many.
I am fully qualified to render a verdict on this. I got married in 1984. There were 14 people at my wedding. My sister was my maid of honor, I lent her a dress. Dad treated everybody to lunch. Bottom line, stem to stern: less than $200.00.
I'm still married to that man. Point of fact, I like him a lot.
But the runaway bride didn't bolt because she invited so many people that there were at least 15 on the "yes" list who planned to kill her at the reception. She bolted for another reason entirely.
Seems she and the man who'd set up this bash had never "done it." The groom, it develops, was a Chippie (Christian/hippie) who had declared himself a "born again virgin," having once or twice porked some chick but then decided that it was wrong, and he should wait until saying "I do." Perhaps understandably, the bride began to wonder if she could pledge herself eternally to a man, not knowing if she would want to share his bed again after the honeymoon night.
Can the bored gods weigh in on this one? Because the Chippie trend seems to be that anything more tempting than holding hands and exchanging "sweet nothing" glances prior to marriage is somehow sinful.
The bored gods have a little saying attributed to them. It goes like this: "An thou harm none, do what thou wilt."
Modern translation: Just set it and forget it.
Oh, there we go with these translators again! Is it any wonder the bored gods don't want to go on record in print?
I need new translators for this site. It's making me work harder. Because here's what the bored gods would tell a bride, any bride. And a groom, any groom.
Get some dependable birth control (pills for her, condom for him). And get it on. Because sexual compatability ranks at the very, very top in marriage. Right up there with sharing fundamental values and not spilling beer on the upholstery.
Bride, you're going to be living with this man and his sexual habits the rest of your life. You'd better like his way of doing things, because he's going to be doing it a lot. Groom, you'd better be aware if she has headaches or "times of the month" that last 14 days out of 28. Otherwise, the good ol' marital union's gonna have some hairline cracks in it from Day One. And we've covered hairline cracks in this forum before. We all know where they lead. Oh, someone missed that? Well, they lead to a pile of crushed rock with bodies buried under it - sometimes children's bodies, when the cracks are in a marriage.
In the heyday of the bored gods, people got married at 12 or 13. Remember when you were that age, how cranked up you were?
The bored gods wouldn't endorse teenage marriage anymore, but the only harm in premarital sex between two consenting partners comes from the possibility of conception. It's harming an unborn child if the two people getting it on aren't sure that they want to gaze fondly at each other over the cafeteria table in the nursing home.
But there's surefire stuff out there that, used sensibly, prevents conception before it occurs. The bored gods think these items, particularly birth control pills, should be available over-the-counter at every pharmacy. Really. You can go psycho on Robitussin, treat yourself to an agonized, lingering death with an overdose of Tylenol. No one ever OD'd on estrogen. You can even use it and operate an automobile or other complicated machinery.
The bored gods are all for sexual experimentation, provided that it is done with the use of sensible, dependable family planning measures. Sex is a gift from the bored gods. Yes, those poor old forgotten deities who sit around knitting afghans! They ruled at a time when humans didn't dominate the planet like steamrollers stuck in high gear. Since humans lived and died in harmony with Nature, life was tough, short, and mostly difficult. Sex was one of the few pleasures, to be enjoyed in and of itself but also for its ability to provide offspring that were valued.
Wow, have times changed!
I'll never encourage my daughters, The Heir and The Spare, to do this "hook up" crap and slut around like those creepy women on Sex and the City. But I am likewise definitely NOT going to encourage The Heir and The Spare to "wait" when they find some guy they dig who digs them back enough to want to spend a good bit of time exclusively with them. Pass the estrogen, pass the condoms, and get it on.
Don't look for me as the hostess of a 600-guest wedding, either. I'm not bloody Queen Elizabeth II. And look how those marriages turned out!
BLUE TINT MY WORLD --- ANNE
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