Thursday, February 12, 2009

Thirty to Forty

The above picture was taken by my second husband, Captain Oh-Wow, to whom I was married for six years during my fourth decade. He was a good photographer, so lots of pictures exist of me from this decade.

I have a theory that at some point during Captain Oh-Wow’s life, he’d been abducted by aliens. I’m not (just) being mean. It explains so many things about him:

1) His total fascination with science fiction movies. Including dubbed Italian C-grade total crapola movies. The special effects budget for those things must be, like, $3.25.
2) His tendency to freak out anytime there were strange lights in the sky. As in, freeze in panic until he could figure out what they were. Including during sex.
3) The fact that all his dreams took place on other planets.
4) The fact that he had no fucking clue how life operates on this planet.

Rather than bore you with a tirade about his various weirdnesses, I’m going to share a single quirk.

He loved to pick up things that he found on the road. We’d be driving along, and he’d spot some unidentified object lying on the berm, or in the ditch, or even trailing along the white line, and he’d stop the car, snatch up the object in question, and toss it in the back seat, where it would lie till he got home and had a chance to examine it. Sometimes he found useful objects; more often there was a reason someone had tossed the item from their car.

I tried to be supportive about this little addiction and evolved an entire scoring system, as if it were an Olympic event. I gave separate points for technical merit (the value of the item grabbed) versus artistic (the grace with which he stopped the car, including the impact on traffic behind us). A moving snatch, without coming to a full-stop, gained him a full 10 for artistic merit.

On the down-side, the time he grabbed up a green knit sweater, only to discover someone had used it to wipe their baby’s butt before pitching it, I had to award him a zero for technical.

21 comments:

  1. OMG you are hilarious but we will give him 10 points for his photograpahy skills at least. Now that is a gorgeous photo!

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  2. He doea sound to have been a fascinating fellow.

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  3. Bwahhhhaaa! Well, live and learn.

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  4. My ex-sister-in-law used to pick up things along side the road. Once she found a new tube top with the tags still on it. Problem. She wasnt the person to wear such a thing however proudly she did wear it. Even for free not everyone should wear tube tops.

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  5. Can't wait for tomorrow's saga...what a hoot, oh child from Hell...my Mother cried when my lil' brother was discovered too...and aren't those little orange aspirins tasty...then there's the men in our lives...ahhh, tis good to be single...but I was starting to worry there, cause I'm a sci-fi buff and will stop on a dime for a piece of ditch furniture...or bones!

    Wierd and chasin' 60...
    sharon

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  6. I think my first husband was his brother.

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  7. Oh yikes. What a terrific habit this was. I hope HE figured out the baby poop on the sweater, and not you.

    Your posts always have fabulous endings. (:

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  8. I used to find some pretty strange stuff when I would walk my dog early in the morning... oddest might have been the battery powered women's sex toy- dog found it by it's scent... It had been in a box, but not the one it was sold in!

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  9. OMG - that is hilarious, girl! Giving points for trash - too brilliant!

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  10. I really like the whole giving points idea.

    I think I'm going to have to steal it.

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  11. That is hillarious. I used to reach into coin returns of pay phones when I was a kid until someone cleared their throat and spit in one. That cured me of the habit.

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  12. The only thing we've stopped to pick up was a loose cats-eye. Not because we wanted it, just to get a closer look at how they work. There's no accounting for scientists ;)

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  13. One might wonder exactly how you two ended up in the first place ...

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  14. Dang. Again, I can't resist. The last time I physically saw you was at the Cub Foods on Wilmington circa 1989. You were with a tall, thin guy with longish hair, and there was some kind of verbal conflict near the checkout counter. You seemed stressed and went back into the store looking for something. I stalked you and positioned myself about 6 feet to your right in the field of your peripheral vision. You didn't notice me, and I spent the next 20 years wondering if I should have tried to intervene. But, hey, tomorrow is Friday, you're happy now, and obviously living with a real man. I guess some things are best left by the side of the road, barely worth the glance in the rear view mirror as they grow smaller in time and fade into the past. Happy Birthday Jeanne and thanks for a wonderful week of.....you! Woo hoo!

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  15. I think he also wins at having the single weirdest bachelor party I've ever attended. Three guys in a tent? Really? But then that was the wedding I got to ride in the wedding carriage so I can't complain.

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  16. Six years ..really you made it that long..a couple of days would have done me in..you must be a patient woman:)

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  17. He must have originated from the same planet as myself.

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  18. Note to self... don't eat bananas while reading Jeanne's posts. But I like your creative way of dealing with the weirdness.

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  19. Speechless. But it's a beautiful picture.

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