Going from ‘love machine’ to ‘dirty oatmeal’ isn’t easy

It’s going to take me a while to get used to this marriage thing. There’s so much I’ve forgotten in the 20-plus years since I last walked the aisle.

Oh, I remember the important stuff, like how to say “yes dear” more often than “are you nuts?” How to fold a towel three ways before putting it on the rod. How to pretend I’m remotely interested in the junk they sell at the Hallmark store.

No, it’s the little stuff I’ve forgotten. Like, for instance, how when you get in a fight you can’t just move to another city, get a job working the loading docks and change your name to Max Steele. Well, I suppose you could, but being married makes for too much paperwork to bother.

Not that Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter) and I have had a fight lately. We haven’t. Not since the wedding a couple weeks ago. The tension of waiting for the inevitable is killing me.

But last Tuesday, I did see a precursor to what might, possibly, become a fight somewhere down the road.

Mrs. T (fLF) told me I smell like “dirty oatmeal.”

Not all the time, she said, but on days when I do a lot of yardwork and don’t shower. Her exact words were, “On days like that, when you come to bed at night, you smell kinda like dirty oatmeal.”

Seriously? Dirty oatmeal? Is this the same woman who has for the past two years consistently told anyone who would listen what a great guy I am?

Things she said before the wedding:

“Mike’s a columnist! He’s hilarious.

“Mike’s a musician! He’s so talented!

“Mike’s a love machine unmatched since the ‘70s, when Richard Roundtree starred as ‘Shaft.’”

OK, I made that last one up. My point is, she said a lot of nice things before we got hitched. Now? Dirty oatmeal.

Since this is the 21^st Century and no humiliation is complete unless posted to Facebook, I shared her comment with the world at large. I was fishing for sympathy, but I might as well have left the rod and reel at home.

Instead of “Oh, you poor, poor boy,” which is what I was hoping for, I received comments and private messages from other wives anxious to share the details of their own husbands’ unique bouquets.

Mary, for instance, calls her husband’s unwashed odor “Oily Old Man.” Not words you’re likely to see on a bottle of after shave.

Cynthia said her husband smells “a little like wet dog.”

Poor beleaguered Seth (the only man to comment), said his wife refers to his natural, manly odor as “milk and pickles.”

Karen admitted (gleefully, I thought) that her husband carried the heady aroma of “cows.” In all fairness, Karen’s husband is a dairy farmer and was before they tied the knot over 40 years ago. She should be used to it by now. My opinion.

At any rate, it appears I’m in good, if smelly, company and that my situation is in no way unique. Still, it’s hard – in just two weeks’ time – to go from from “hilarious, talented love machine” to “dirty oatmeal.”

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