Tiger's Apology

PhillyTwo, wise beyond her years, maintains that there are two things and two things only that keep men from cheating.
1. Lack of opportunity.
2. Religion.
I keep asking, what about integrity? Aren't there men who remain faithful because they have personal integrity? And she keeps saying, integrity, inshmegrity. Opportunity, religion. End of story.
She may be right. But I also think fear plays a role...fear of getting caught (with your pants down around your ankles). For a lot of men, the fear isn't about losing their wives. The fear is about losing half their net worth. That hits them where it really hurts. Their hearts are made of steel. It's their wallets that are vulnerable.
But back to PhillyTwo's theory. Tiger's opportunities to cheat? I'd say they were constant. The bevy of beauties who made themselves available to him? Infinitesimal.
Was he ever afraid that Elin would find out? Probably. But pleasure trumped fear. And entitlement trumped everything. It always does. In his statement, when he read that he had felt entitled, that's when, if I were his wife, my heart would have turned ice cold (if it hadn't already).
But after all was said and done, and there was nowhere else to turn, that's when, in my opinion, Tiger hit rock bottom. That's when he claimed that he's gonna stay out of the hen house because of his Buddhist upbringing. Well bully for him. I would have given him respect if he had said he was going to remain faithful because anything less than that would hurt the woman he loves (and I don't mean his mother). But vowing monogamy and asking for forgiveness, while giving props to Buddha, was right down there in the gutter alongside entitlement in my book. Tiger fail.
And the staged mama-hug? The best reason of all for Elin to beat the ever-loving shit out of her sorry-ass, mama's boy, philandering husband (the proverbial monetary beating, of course).

No Regrets

Today is Ron and my 18th anniversary. Yeah, I know, it's also Valentine's Day. It just worked out that way. We weren't one of those couples that stood barefoot with flower halos in a big group down by the river to say our I-do's. Nor did we stand in a church, wearing tux and veil in front of friends and family to exchange vows. We were much more mundane . We simply slipped off by ourselves to a near-by small town courthouse, signed some papers, and got hitched. Then we dropped by a mom-and-pop barbecue restaurant for lunch. We were back home in plenty of time to pick PhillyTwo up from school. There were no pictures to commemorate the occasion. No wedding gifts. No cake. Would I do it any differently, if I could? I don't think so. The no-frills approach suited us. Our investment was in the marriage, not in the wedding.

Drinking Games

I know a younger generation of alcohol consumers created this phenomenon, but as far as I'm concerned, drinking games can be fun at any age. From what I can gather, all you need to pull this off is a group of like-minded individuals, and by like-minded, I mean people who are hell-bent on getting drunk, enough of the adult beverage of choice to facilitate the transformation and something to watch on the big, wide, hi-def screen that can act as the catalyst. The group must decide prior to the start of the show or movie or event - whatever it is they have come together to watch -what precise words or actions will trigger the group to take a drink, in unison. The idea is to choose a word or phrase or action that you know will be repeated often, so as to render general inebriation. One of the most recent television events that became an instant hit as a drinking game was the president's state of the union address. Every time the audience gave him a standing ovation, everyone had to drink. Same when he said certain words, like health care, unemployment and Haiti. Drink, drink and drink. I'm guessing there were a lot of drunks at the end of that speech.
Now, while I'm not at all interested in bringing a bunch of people together for the purpose of getting drunk, the concept of this drinking game has gotten me thinking, and I've come up with a couple of situations right here in my own home that could easily (and should) be turned into drinking games. 'Cause that just seems like good clean fun.

Fred the dog appears to be in the throes of dementia, and doesn't seem to know whether he's coming or going, or whether he wants to be inside or out, so I propose we make a drinking game of it. Every time he barks to go out, everyone in the house has to take a shot of tequila. Then, ten seconds later, when he barks to come back in, it's another shot of tequila all around. I think the annoyance with that whole in and out situation would be greatly diminished.

Ron loves to play his guitar and sing, and while he actually has a nice voice, it's like I told him the other day: I don't care if I lived with James Frickin' Taylor, if I had to listen to him sing every single day, I'd get sick of it. That was before. This is now. I see an opportunity for another drinking game. Every time Ron picks up his guitar, PhillyTwo and I (or by myself if need be ) need to get out the vodka and shot glasses. Each time he starts a new song, bottoms up. I believe I'd be much more receptive to his music after that.

The moral of this story, if you need to have one, is that we should always be learning from our children, not judging them. And every time we adopt something as our own that once was exclusively theirs (Texting, Facebook, Twitter) we need to salute them. Actually, we could make a drinking game out of it...