Guest Post . . . Tam!

Today's guest post is from my good friend, Tamara, who threw the best wedding EVER. There were sparklers. And Reese's Pieces. Yeah. Enough said. And now . . . I present . . . Tam . . .

I must say, this week’s guest posts were a hard act to follow – Apple pie cancer? Eating the remains of a Ped Egg while on the date from hell? What is this world coming to? This is my humble attempt at making my seemingly perfect life sound bad.

Five worst things about being a newlywed.

I must preface this by saying I was married on July 4th and I ADORE my husband. He really, really is the “man of my dreams,” cliché I know, but I did have a lot of dreams about him before we got hitched. He killed me in one of them.

1. The presents eventually stop coming

As soon as you drop the invitations in the mailbox, the presents start rolling in. Your front door is stacked to the ceiling every day with Crate and Barrel boxes. The best part is when someone doesn’t come to your wedding and they just send a present instead. Double-bonus because you get the present AND don’t have to pay for their meal. People you’ve never even met send you gifts and money. Even after the wedding, the presents keep coming. But, eventually you run out of people who forgot to send you a present and even though you run to the door every time the doorbell rings with hopes of seeing a burly UPS man, it’s probably just an Asian boy scout trying to pressure you into buying some damn popcorn.

2. People ask you intangible questions about your marriage that you are obligated to respond to.

“How does it feel to be married?” This inevitable question asked by people I barely know DRIVES ME CRAZY. Whatever happened to statements like, “Congratulations!” Instead, they ask you to regurgitate a “feeling.” I am tempted to respond, “Well, most of the time I’m warm “down there,” full at night and during the day I’m so completely in love I can barely focus on driving.” Instead I my generic answer is this: “It feels the same as being engaged.” Sometimes I add, “…and now there are more repercussions if he dies.”

3. You have to act and think like a wife

Earlier this week, during an internal dialog session, I was bitching about how my husband NEVER sorts his laundry and wondering why it is MY job to finger through his stinky socks. I then slapped myself for thinking like a wife. My inner fembot rallied my independent former-self to ask me why it is now MY RESPONSIBILITY to make sure he has clean under things.

Then yesterday, I was in the waiting room at the doctor’s office paging through the August 2008 Oprah magazine and I happened upon a one-page story called, The Bride and The Broom. Tagline: Enjoy the honeymoon, honey, because you’re going to have seven extra hours of housework…

According to research at the University of Michigan [boo!], having a husband adds seven extra hours of chores a week; the lucky man loses an hour’s worth of cooking and cleaning.

Come to think of it, my equality-touting spouse hasn’t cooked or cleaned a
single thing in two weeks. They didn’t tell me this before I got married. Yet
another reason to HATE Michigan.

4. You change your name and the process makes you realize mankind is regressing

These days’ people change their name to all kinds of stuff [Crap Bag]. This was a HUGE decision for me and other bra burning feminists and I must say the process puts the Kreb cycle to shame. After much deliberation, I changed my name to (original first name) (my last name) (his last name). No hyphens ---, one last name, shut up. I started getting credit cards in the mail (my first name)(my old middle name)(my last name)(his last name) Who puts that many names on a credit card? My work kept my middle name and added a hyphen [even though I provided them with a new SS card] I guess the HR lady didn’t like my new name choice. And THIS was the conversation I had with the bank:

Me: Hi, you changed my name wrong. I got married and dropped my old middle name and my old LAST name is my NEW middle name.

Connie, the teller: You can’t do that.

Me: Um, yes I can.

Connie, the teller: Not without court papers. Do you have court papers?

Me: No, but I have a new SS card. That’s pretty official.

Connie, the teller: Nope, I must have court documents. You can’t just go and drop a name like that; you have to go through the court system.

Me: What do you think people do when they get married…THEY DROP THEIR LAST NAME! I just dropped a different name. Trust me it’s legal.

Connie, the teller: I have never heard of something like this. That is why, in the system, I added two last names.

Me: Change it.

5. And lastly [and perhaps even more important than your new social security card…]

You have to change your Facebook status from “looking for men” to “married” or else people will talk about you.

Within one week of my wedding I had messages on “my wall” that said, “So are you ever going to change your status?” My husband joined Facebook last week and the funniest part about it is when you change your status to ‘married’ to another person on Facebook, they have to ‘confirm’ your marriage request [I guess they started this after Jennie! tried to Facebook-claim she was married to John Krasinski].

Best part: on your ‘profile edit page’ under the ‘married’ status, it gives you the option to ‘delete relationship’ – apparently, according to Facebook, it’s just that easy.

Best,

(my first name)(my last name)(his last name)

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