Before the church would marry us, it required that we attend a “marriage compatibility” class. I began my unsuccessful attempt to promote elopement as the best way to achieve our mutual goal upon learning this. My soon-to-be wife was quite insistent, however, that she be married in the church she grew up in, and so I agreed to take the class in order to make her happy. And, if she’s happy, I’m happy (theoretically). Now, to be frank, I must admit that the icy stare and threats of physical harm might have played a role in my capitulation of the elopement issue.

So, off to marriage compatibility classes we went. It was tortuous. I have never been one for church and religion, so having to talk about the religious symbolism of marriage and God’s role in our life together and blah, blah, blah was like listening to nails scratching a chalk board. But, I went through with it for love. Love of my physical well-being and testicles; as I was told by She Who Must Be Obeyed that I would no longer have the manly appendages should I do something that hindered our getting married in the church.

Over the course of the next six weeks, I “listened” to the counseling of the pastor and learned the lessons of achieving marital harmony. By “listened,” I mean I stared off into space and thought about sports. There was much talk about what marriage is really about, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. But, let’s face it; we all know what a marriage is really about: expensive gifts and sex. Perhaps sensing my ambivalence and cynicism to the whole process, the pastor then tried to relate what he was talking about to my own profession. The pastor attempted to explain that marriage was like the corporate mergers and acquisitions I learned about in law school. There may be downsizing of each others’ possessions (I later learned this translates in God talk to, “thou shalt throw all your shit away”). There will be human resource issues (“thou shalt obey her”). There will be policy changes (“thou shalt not leave your underwear on her floor”). There may be arguments over how to best maintain the office (“thou shalt leave the toilet seat down at all times”). He went on and on with his analogy. I went on and on with ignoring him. Much as I can still figure, all six weeks of lessons can be Cliff Noted into just one lesson: Do what she says.

Much to my (testicles’) relief, we passed the class and finally tied the proverbial knot. Shortly thereafter, I moved into my wife’s townhouse and the merger and acquisition began. I acquired all of my wife’s furniture and possessions, and she merged all of my furniture and possessions with the bags of trash in the dumpster. I also got a new boss, and it was not my wife. My wife was only Vice-President of our new company. The title of President and Chief Executive Officer belonged to my wife’s boss: her pudgy and quite bitchy calico cat. The good thing was that our roles in the new company were clearly defined. The CEO was the Supreme Queen of the Universe. My wife was Food Wench. I was given the euphemistic title of Litter Box Technician (that’s the politically correct term for Shit Scooper).

The first week or so of the merger was rough in large part because the expensive gifts had been opened already and I found the Queen to be hard to live with. As my wife had been a long-time employee of the Queen, she naturally took to the Queen’s side rather than mine. The tensions continued to rise as the Queen displayed her bitchiness to her new lowly employee in the Shit Scooping department. Finally, I decided that the only way to handle the situation was to “compromise and communicate” as the pastor had suggested in our class. Best I could gather from what I paid attention to in the class, this really meant “put your foot down.” So, one morning I decided to communicate my feelings on the issue to my new wife:

“That’s it! I can’t take any more of this shit,” I exclaimed as I threw off the sheets to the bed.

“Huh?” my lovely wife groggily inquired.

“You didn’t hear that?” I asked.

Meeeeooooowwwww went Her Highness quite loudly from the adjacent room. I should mention at this point that the alarm clock currently read 3:16 a.m.

“Your damn cat has been waking me up every night for the past week! Last night I woke up to find her licking my head, and the night before that she decided to use my back as a scratching post. Tonight she’s acting like an opera singer on crack! It’s three in the morning for Christ’s sake!”

My wife considered this for a moment. Perhaps she was just resisting the urge to snatch off my balls. I can never tell. In any event, she calmly replied: “No, you’ve been waking up every night for the past week because of your cough. I told you to go see the doctor.”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” I protested, “knowing your damn cat she probably threw up a hairball into my mouth while I was sleeping and that’s why I’m coughing at night. She’s smarter than you give her credit for and she’s out to get me. But I’m not going to let her! I’m going to get her first!”

“You’re acting like a crazy person,” replied my beautiful wife, “Evie is cute and adorable and the only reason she’s annoying this week is because she’s in heat. And, to be perfectly honest, you’re pretty annoying when you’re horny as well.”

“Oh come on! That cat is not cute and adorable! She’s annoying whether she’s in heat or not. Just this week alone she peed on your couch, she shit on your keyboard, she licks her butt constantly, and she smells like ass!” This is the point where I deemed it prudent per the pastor’s advice to put my foot down. I continued, “I’m telling you, I’ve had it with Kung Pao Chicken in there. She’s got to go!”

“I don’t think so,” commanded my wife. “If you do one thing to that cat, she won’t be the only pussy you’ll be without for a long, long time.”

Seeing that my wife was quite serious in her statements, I decided shutting the hell up and going back to sleep was the best course of action at that time. Of course, it was only about an hour before I woke to find the damn cat sleeping on top of my head purring and glaring at me smugly, quite satisfied with herself and the victory she had achieved. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t say anything more about it for fear of chastity. It appeared at least for the time being that the damn cat had my tongue, and that the pastor was wrong. The key to marital harmony is not to "compromise and communicate," but rather to shut the hell up and deal with it.