I don’t do well by myself. Today I dropped the Tiguan off at the Eurocar repair shop to have the back brakes replaced (after only 65,000 miles — whatever happened to quality?). The owner of the place very kindly offered me a lift home, which offer I gratefully accepted.
And then it all went pear-shaped. You see, I always drop the deadbolt on the front door when I leave the house because I go out through the garage.
You know where this is going, right?
Yup; the garage door opener is still in the Tiguan, ten miles away, and my front door key is useless because deadbolt.
So I sidled off to the apartment complex manager to see what could be done. Long story short: nada. For security reasons, there is no universal remote for the garages, and as with the front door, the patio door is likewise deadbolted. I am marooned for the next four hours or so, and I don’t like it.
Follow my reasoning, here: if I had a wife, she’d be at home to let me in, with a steaming cup of consoling coffee withal, and I wouldn’t be sitting here typing on the complex’s public computer with only the lovely Claudia in the office to look at, listening to the canned “boom-tsss, boom-tss, boom-tss” background music supporting the usual helium-voiced Black chick singing crap lyrics in nigh-incomprehensible Ebonics.
Or maybe it’s Taylor Swift singing. I’m not sure because tinnitus makes it difficult to hear anything through the World’s Cheapest Speakers echoing through the hard-floored hard-walled curtainless office complex.
This wife thing may seem to be something of an extreme remedy for the (very) occasional circumstance of locking oneself out of the house; but there are plenty of other reasons, such as the fact that my last sexual encounter with a woman was during the Bush presidency (and don’t ask which one, either). Another reason for me to have a wife is that I am absolutely sick of my own cooking — a man can only eat so much steak, shrimp, toasted cheese or -chicken sandwiches, coleslaw, lamb vindaloo, Jarlsberg cheese, bacon & eggs, grilled boerewors, baby back ribs, grapefruit segments, sausage rolls, steak ‘n kidney pie, ice cream, and baked beans on toast for so long before he dies of the dreaded Gastric Boredom. Some variety, in other words, is needed.
Speaking of need, I need a drink, but of course old-fashioned hospitality has disappeared because offering a cocktail to a man in dire straits is nowadays something Only Hitler Would Do, or so I’ve heard. If I had a wife, I’d never have that problem because anyone I’d marry would know that when I need a drink, I need a drink and that’s the end of it.
So I’m announcing today that I am now in the market for a wife, on a first-come first-served basis, so to speak. And while all offers will be closely scrutinized, I should remind all lonely desperate needy partners that I am, to put it very mildly, a terrible prospect and you would be better off hooking up with Hitler. Or something like that.
Unless Maintenance somehow manages to find some way into my apartment and gets me inside, in which case never mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXG2_UF6_1Y
And that is why there is a zip tie securing my emergency release. I can break it if I’m yanking on it from the inside, but some yahoo on the outside can’t.
Kim;
If you had a wife, she’d probably be inside the house with the locked, deadbolted doors listening to you outside while she’s laughing her ass off at your foolishness, Probably waiting till just after it started raining.
As far as the drink is concerned, she’d probably be enjoying one while you languished outside.
Remember the words: “A man may be a fool and not know it. But not if he has a wife.”
Surely a man of your intelligence, who has SOME skill at cooking, can add to his repertoire. I HAVE met a few people who could, literally, burn water, but they cannot cook ANYTHING.
Not that being able to cook additional dishes would necessarily obviate the need for a wife….but it might render the issue less urgent.
reductio ad absurdum:
They no longer hang horse thieves.
When I was 8, my father took the family out of a very genteel (at that time) area of the Bronx and moved us up to Eastchester (the blue-collar side of Scarsdale). We had two front doors: a normal steel one found in all apartments, and a slatted wooden one for the summer that was hung on the front of the frame. They both had locks which were never; then again this was back in the late’40s – early ’50s.
Good luck.
Seriously.
I feel your pain….and I’m almost there.
I understand, however, that there is now a service, much like Grubhub, where a suitable wife is delivered, from overseas….you select on a menu, pay with your credit card and presto!
Something to think about
Having married a wonderful women the second time around after being in a difficult marriage for over twenty years I have a suggestion, or two. In my case I married a widow who’s deceased husband was a very good man who loved to hunt and fish and she enjoyed seeing him enjoy his pastimes, he came for a rather nice family. The second thing is a bit of history about a woman being raised by nice parents with a loving father, not a drunken Irish, Texas Oil Man, asshole like my first wife’s dad, he raised two beautiful super-smart daughters who have trouble with most everything that comes their way in life.
Last things to think about are humor, shared values and most of all friendship that goes a long way when times become difficult. Sharing a few drinks in the evening and talking is great and then having her laugh when you walk by and pat her on the ass makes each day better than the last one. But, hey, that’s just me and good luck to you and with the right match I know some nice woman will be lucky to have a cranky old man around to share her life with you, Kim.
Even considering the undocumented fees and charges, mental, moral, physical and financial, a good wife has an RoR of about a million eleventy billion percent.
I have one.
God knows why she stays.
Uh! And this Texan does not carry a deadbolt key on one of his key rings why? The keys to the house, cars and gun cabinets are with me 24/7 (and not on the car key ring either). Then there is also this marvelous gadget called a keypad garage door opener available at your local big box hardware store for 30 bucks.
https://www.amazon.com/Chamberlain-Universal-KLIK2U-P2-LiftMaster-Compatible/dp/B0014XOS64?psc=1&SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0014XOS64
A wife (even marginally manic ones) are great to have but very expensive to keep, so make such selection process with great care and trepidation.
Good luck old sod.
Having the deadbolt openable from the outside defeats the purpose of having one, for one thing.
Back in my single days I learned to cook moderately well, although mostly simple stuff (I made a MEAN stir-fry though, in an actual wok, not one of those flat-bottomed ones either). I found the biggest hassle was bothering to cook for just me, it was easier to have a sandwich, eat out, or go get take-out.
Having now been married for 19 years, I can say that a GOOD wife is the best thing in this world, while a bad one is Hell on Earth. I got a good one.
“The second thing is a bit of history about a woman being raised by nice parents with a loving father, not a drunken Irish, Texas Oil Man, asshole like my first wife’s dad…”
^^^THIS. Look at HER parents and how she was raised. If her parents have a good marriage, it’s likely she’ll be good IN a marriage. Thinking back now, I can’t think of one person I’ve known who’s divorced where both parties in the marriage came from parents with good marriages…..
If you’re really lookin (and not tongue firmly in cheek), you must get familiar with this: The hot/crazy matrix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwbKYcBdVyk
Been together with Iris now since what… ’05, I think.
So far, the good outweighs the bad, even though sometimes that’s only by 0.0001%.
But that “got each other’s back” is a strong thing with us, here. We go out of our respective ways for one another. Plus, we both cook, and with enough skill and variety to stave off abject boredom.
The third bedroom of the house is where the safe, wine chiller, bar, cigar humdors, gun-workbench, library, ‘net router and printer reside. It’s the BATFE (Bedroom of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Electronics).
Most specifically though, it’s not a “man cave”. It IS an Adult Room though, straight up.
Find you a lass who gladly (not grudgingly) will indulge your interests…and even sometimes participate therewith, and you’re already ahead of the curve. Barring that, can you picture being with one who simply couldn’t bear to have such a tacky use of what should’ve been but a next-to-never-used “guest room”?
Didn’t think so. Me, either. The 2nd bedroom is the Guest Bedroom. Place didn’t need two of those, here.
Good luck…and Happy Hunting!
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
p.s. I still LIKED living on the boat better than being a landlubber. Such is compromise, I suppose.
Keychain opener or wall mounted, get one.
I hear you on the wife bit, but I still feel ill when I think about such things. Next year the youngest goes off to college for her last 2 years of her bachelors, perhaps the new loneliness will alter my feelings. Who new finding happiness was so complicated, and frankly I now think its a minor miracle that people find each other at all.
“…my last sexual encounter with a woman was during the Bush presidency…”
I’ll admit to Bush the Younger’s first term.
But after a failed twenty-year marriage, a four-year “dry spell” and some brushes with wrong quadrants of the Hot/Crazy Matrix, my chief interest in women these days is whether or not they can do drywall or crown molding.
I am, however, still willing to look them over.
Rick C – sorry, language issue. To me a deadbolt is one with a very complex dimple key on the outside which has no handle and can be driven permanently latched from the inside with a selective lever, it allows the key action to disconnect when you go to bed at night, but you can switch it such that it can be opened daytime. Required two keys to enter the house when not security engaged, the normal entry key and door handle was one lock, the “deadbolt” was the second. I lived in a relatively high robbery prone country at the time, one where iron bars were on some windows and roll down steel blinds on the rest, closed at night. Most Americans today have little concept of this. I guess if one did not go out that door in the morning (which de activated the inside safety) one could lock themselves out. Habits are important. Oh, and that door was 2″ thick oak cross joined in two layers with iron rivets and had 4 large inside hinges to hold it all up and a 24″ steel insert on the opposite jamb deeply fastened to concrete. Glad to live in America but worry we are creeping to this same endpoint.
Yep, my three exterior doors have dead bolts, no outside keys as well as keyed alike door opening keys, all three metal doors and I live in a part of Texas where I probably don’t need to even lock my doors because I live on a circle street over a 1/4 mile from the road but we do lock our doors. I have hidden a key, no one knows where expect my 18 year old grandson who got into the house to feed the dog when we had an extended medical procedure on my wife this past year. A well hidden key is not a bad idea because we went on a trip to Colorado a few years ago and I locked our storm doors and then our daughter could not get into the house to water the plants, the dog was with us.
Of course the real funny part of that story is that before we took off, I backed my wife’s 4-Runner into the driveway so there would be a car in the drive, my pickup does not fit in the garage, I was in a hurry to get away and left her car unlocked with the garage door on the visor. Oh Well – Live and Learn or something. Meanwhile when we were gone the plants were not watered in the house.