Couplehood Read Free

too risky. Ever see the guys who shave with an electric razor while they’re
driving?
What is
that
about? You telling me there’s no other opportunity in their day to have a razor at their throat than while doing sixty around a curve? Surely they couldsqueeze a moment in before breakfast. Or at least wait for a red light.
    Personally, I have to be on dry, non-moving land to shave. And even then, it’s not so easy. The main problem is I have no mirror depth perception. It’s all distorted; left is right, forward is back—I don’t know where I am. Ever try to check the back of your head with another mirror? I can’t find myself. I’ve missed by a good six feet. I go, “Oh, that’s not me at all. That’s a shower cap on a hook.”
    The best thing is to find somebody who looks roughly like you and just look at the back of
his
head.
    I ’ve actually tried
not
shaving, but it turns out I’m not a Beard Guy. Certain guys look good in beards. I look, at best, like I’m on my way to something that may, ultimately, with a lot of work,
become
a beard.
    My beard starts to look promising, and then in four days just gets tired and stops. People see me unshaven and ask, “Oh, what is that—three days, four days?”
    And I have to tell them, “Sadly, since last summer. But thank you for caring.”
    And they always ask. They see stubble and have to comment.
    “What are you—growing a beard?”
    What if I wasn’t? What if I simply forgot to shave? Now they’re just criticizing my hygiene. Like if you forgotto shower they’d say, “Hey, did you
mean
to smell like that? You going for some effect or are you just woefully negligent?”
    And that awkward stage of Beard Development is toughest on your partner.
    “I can’t kiss you with that face. It hurts.”
    “It’s going to be a regular beard any day now.”
    “Let’s talk then.”
    M y wife and I start each morning with the genuine intention of exercising. But in a dazzling display of mutual support, we’ve learned to talk ourselves right out of it.
    “Look,
I
don’t feel like working out,
you
don’t feel like working out—let’s just skip it.”
    “Nobody’s going to know, right?”
    “It’ll be our little secret.”
    “Right, we’ll just look the way we do.”
    “And if anybody asks, we ran.”
    The truth is
nobody
wants to work out. We just do it to keep up with people who look better than we do. If we all just agreed to
not
work out—and I mean
everyone
, across the board—we’d be a lot happier. We could eat cupcakes and sleep late. The problem is it would only take
one
guy in good shape to ruin it for the whole group. “Great, now we gotta look like
this
guy.…” And the next morningwe’d all be back running, lifting, and sweating against our will.
    S ome people talk like it’s nothing. “I’ll just lose it after the holidays. It won’t be hard—I mean I’ve only been eating like a pig these last … what is it … 3 … 4 … 20 years. I’ll have some cottage cheese for lunch, I’ll be fine.”
    We put a lot of pressure on cottage cheese. We’ve convinced ourselves it’s a Miracle Food. If it’s on your plate, you’re on a diet. Doesn’t matter what else is on the plate. It could be three cheeseburgers and a mountain of lard. Drop a scoop of cottage cheese on there—it’s a Diet Plate.
    Same with a peach half. Somehow it’s a Diet Enforcer. “Sixteen pork patties with a piano-size pile of potatoes, and a fresh peach half.” And you think, “Peach half —how bad could it be? It’s obviously a special Dieter’s Platter.”
    If you ever see cottage cheese
and
half a peach on a plate, for God’s sake be careful. You could literally disappear. Your body mass could evaporate into thin air—so powerful are these nutritious diet items.
    A footnote: If your partner ever suggests that they have, perhaps, gained an unwanted ounce or two, stay out of it.
    I beg you. Even if they bring it up first.
    “Do I look a little