Dear Amateur Brain Surgeon

Dear Amateur Brain Surgeon

I am writing to you because I am having a bit of a rough go of it lately with my wife. Here is what has been happening lately; this past June, on a Saturday, she made me go shopping with her and she took me to a strip mall where there was this store called Bed, Bath, and Beyond; yeah, Beyond Hell, only worse.

We got in there and my wife was looking around for these blue balls (don't snicker just yet, this is part of my problem if'n'ya catch my drift) called, Bluapple (please find enclosed photo)

Anyways, as we are looking all over hell and creation inside that damn store (Why is it that women can't understand we men are created to be warriors, not strip mall shoppers?) and, of course, she wouldn't ask for help from one of those refuse-to-make-eye-contact endomorphic clerks trying to avoid actual work by wandering aimlessly around the store moving lazily about like one of those fat worthless blobs in a crummy Lava Lamp (please find enclosed photo)

 and so, suddenly, we find our own selves standing before this collection of those green sacks that preserve the life of fruits and vegetables (please find enclosed photo)

and so I say to the wife, "Ya know, honey, you've fatted-up quite a bit since the wedding; why don't I buy four or five score of these bags, hire a seamstress, and have her make them into a house coat that you could wear and then maybe you'd stop going bad."

Well, Amateur Brain Surgeon, she shot me a look that made my testicles high-tail it straight up into my torso and my manhood shrunk significantly (has your wife ever gotten a look on her face that made you think, Holy Shit, Lorena Bobbit?) and my throat got all dry and stuff and she barely heard my, "Ah, come on, darlin', you know I was just joking," and, to be truthful, I sort of knew she wouldn't buy that lame apology.

So, the upshot of this whole terrible nightmare is that my wife refuses to pay her marriage debt and she keeps insisting - without telling me what specifically it is she wants - that before she does pay her marriage debt, she needs a significant investment from me (she was an economics major and I think she is playing some sort of head game with me).

It's been nearly four damn months, man.

O, yeah, one last thing about those blue.....

Signed, Flummoxed in Fort Meyers.

Dear Flummoxed in Fort Meyers. Amateur Brain Surgeon has about had it with you questioners telling me to "please find enclosed..."

QUIT IT!!!

Of course ABS finds those photos; they are enclosed in the same envelope as the letter y'all write.

OK, now back to your letter. 

Readers will note that there ABS has simply excised part of the sentence beginning, O, yeah, one last thing about those blue.....because this crummy blog has standards (no, really).

As far as your question about her asking for a significant investment goes before she pays her marriage debt, let's hear from Saint Thomas Aquinas;  I answer that, Equality is twofold, of quantity and of proportion. Equality of quantity  is that which is observed between two quantities of the same measure, for instance a thing two cubits long and another two cubits in length. But equality of proportion is that which is observed between two proportions of the same kind as double to double. Accordingly, speaking of the first equality, husband and wife are not equal in marriage; neither as regards the marriage act, wherein the more noble part is due to the husband, nor as regards the household management, wherein the wife is ruled and the husband rules. But with reference to the second kind of equality, they are equal in both matters, because just as in both the marriage act and in the management of the household the husband is bound to the wife in all things pertaining to the husband, so is the wife bound to the husband in all things pertaining to the wife. It is in this sense that it is stated in the text (Sent. iv, D, 32) that they are equal in paying and demanding the debt.

So, there's that on the level of justice, but, come on man; what were you thinking?

Look, ABS has no sympathy for you, Flummoxed,  and instead of trying to imagine what precise material investment it is that she requires before agreeing to pay her marriage debt, try acting towards her as though you really do love her beyond all measure for it is not a material investment, but love, that will dissolve the contention and restore right order to your marriage.

You, flummoxed, are not likely to have married a woman as hauntingly beautiful and sexually beguiling as was Julie Christie in a movie

not is your wife likely to resemble the sex Catamount Brigitte Bardot out of her clothes.

 but there was a time when you thought she was beautiful, right?

Look, Flummoxed, maybe this will help...

Amateur Brain Surgeon remembers when he was born in Springfield, Vermont 

and he remembers walking from his house to this crummy little airport where every summer a fair was held and he remembers walking back to his house one summer and a song he had heard at the fair keep repeating itself in his 16 y.o. mind;

and ABS became inexplicably sad, unintentionally courting depression really, and for the life of him he could not figure out what it was that was missing from his life for he had been born into an Irish-Algonquin Catholic family and he loved sports - and was not too bad at them - and he had some good friends he liked to hang out with and cause trouble with and it was only when he went to a dance at the local tennis courts that he received the answer to a question he did not know existed but which question was pestering him.

It was The Bride; and the moment, literally, ABS' eyes fell upon her, all of that inexplicable sadness vanished for he had, suddenly and unexpectedly, discovered the answer to a question he did not even know existed.

In his eyes, she is still the prettiest woman ABS has ever seen - Julie Christie and Brigitte Bardot included - and she had long strawberry blonde hair, and and a smile that lit up the night, and she was wearing white jeans that fitted her perfectly and accentuated her beautiful ass and long legs and the pink turtleneck sweater she wore both concealed and revealed perfect peaks (She was born in Perkinsville, Vermont, a few miles away from Springfield and, Yes, to this very second ABS remembers everything perfectly) and she never tired of ABS referring to her, "Perfect Perkinsville Peaks."

ABS will try to shorten-up this already too long post by noting that he and the Bride have only increased in both girth and mirth since we met lo' those many years ago at the tennis courts and The Bride, like many women do, laments that her once Perfect Perkinsville Peaks are no longer what they once were and ABS reminds her that those Perfect Perkinsville Peaks were not at their prettiest the night they first met, they were at their prettiest when their perfect form fulfilled their function as designed by God - when she was breast-feeding our children - and, from the foundation of the world, it was God's plan that those Perfect Perkinsville Peaks would both attract me, be a source of pleasure to us both, but, most importantly, be the source of nourishment for the children He desired be brought into this world and that they are no longer the once Perfect Perkinsville Peaks they once were is aught but the physical confession that they have been humbled by their holy duties and there is a poetic humbled beauty now in these  Perfect Perkinsville Peaks that did not exist the night ABS and The Bride met on the tennis courts and it is because they are humbled that they are, more than they ever have been, Perfect Perkinsville Peaks.

Dear Flummoxed in Fort Meyers, when you and your Bride pay the marriage debt to each other, think about who it is you are paying the debt to - she is the one whom you fell in love with; she is your Bride; she is the Mother of your children; and when she finally consents to paying the marriage debt you will be making love with that women at every stage of her life, from the moment you met her, to when you were married, to when she became a mother, to the moment the marriage debt is paid, if you love her as you ought - the way God wants you to love her.

O, Amateur Brain Surgeon forgot to mention that The Bride will be turning 64 shortly and this morning, like every morning, she woke up and began singing, and if there exists a more beautiful woman with a heart as soft as hers or a soul as pure and beautiful as hers, ABS has not heard of her.

Yogi Berra just died and though he did not say this, he prolly thought it: You can see the truth through the eyes of your soul.