The Price of Marriage

“They” say that everything has a price. To be honest I believe that. At the very bottom level you pay a price for everything you want to do in life. You want that donut; pay the price on weight gain, or exercise. You want that new book from Chapters; something else does not get bought. Some things have very small prices; prices so trivial that the cost is negligible, others have such enormous costs associated with them that the straddle our backs for a great portion of our lives.

Marriage has a price. It is perhaps the penultimate example of give and take, or paying the price for what you want. Last Friday night my wife paid a terrible price for 17 years of commitment to our relationship. I vaguely recall somewhere in the back of my mind a couple of things we may have agreed to on our wedding day: through thick and thin, in good times and in bad. As I alluded to earlier, there is always a cost.

Friday night my wife booked a pedicure with a neighborhood friend. For over 3 hours the sipped wine, nibbled crackers and chatted, while having their feet washed, oiled, groomed and pampered. Being the most excellent husband I am I took the 3 boys out for the evening. I got lucky and my eldest was invited to a friend’s house. The younger 2 and myself hit the local mall to browse through the selection of Thomas the Tank Engine tracks.

Over the course of the night as we were wandering the boys mentioned they were thirsty. Since it was dad night I decided to treat them to one of those yogurty, fruit smoothie type drinks. We were close to Jooster Buice(name changed to protect the company), a store that specializes in nutritional drinks and the like. I picked up 2 small berry concoctions.

As we lounged around on some chairs in the mall having our drinks I sampled from each of the boys cups. Sip here, sip there… All in all I probably drank at least 1 full cup of berry smoothie stuff.

After we finished the drinks we packed up and headed home. Within 15 minutes my stomach was bothering me. I have had the feeling before, same sort of feeling if I drink apple juice first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I got home and did the bedtime routine, got all three boys teeth brushed, pj’d, pee’d, storied and tucked in. All while the foot worship continued down stairs.

By now my stomach was continuing to bother me, It had moved past pain to an almost nauseas state. This was a good hour after I had consumed the drink, so any acid like effects should have passed. I grabbed a glass of milk and some tums and went to chat with the ladies.

Originally it had been my intent to trade the foot worship Friday time for a bit of husband snuggle time(like I said, everything has a price), but by 9:30/10:00 things were not getting any better so I decided to leave the feet queens alone and head upstairs to bed. I was too uncomfortable to sleep, so I flicked on the TV and lay suffering.

Then the gurgling started. Bubbling, churning, boiling sounds coming from my nether regions. The discomfort increased proportionality to the sounds my digestive track was making. The pressure increased as the time passed. Now for the benefit of any readers with a delicate constitution I am now going to paraphrase what happened next.

The first few decompressions were immense, Mount St Helens volume eruptions. I was hoping that they were going to provide relief, but they were only foreshadowing.

By 11:00 the situation was dire and I had moved from the comfort of the bed, into the bathroom, traces of my presence still lingering in the air of the bedroom.

11:30 and the company had left and my wife wandered upstairs. I was trying to find a fetal position that I could maintain while perched on the toilet. A thin sheen of sweat covering all my skin. She walked into the bedroom and I think she may have retched a little.

She opened the window, offered me comfort through the closed door and bless her soul, actually crawled into bed.

12:00 pm. I have worn a trail in the carpet moving from the bed to the bathroom every 2-3 minutes. My beloved spouse having giggled her way through my discomfort finally bails on me, as I am making too much noise and keeping her awake. Too much noise; put the pieces together on that one.

Somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 am the demons leave and I stumble into sleep.

Interesting point… Neither of the 2 younger boys showed the slightest reaction to the drinks at all… nothing, nada, zip.

Prices, everything has a price and I imagine my spouse having lived through a portion of that night some days wonders if the price may be too high.