By Jenny Andrews
Thank you all for signing up for the Fourth Annual Revive Your Marriage cruise. You will acquire communicative intra and interpersonal interfacing strategies designed to maximize your marital longevity potential factor. Please refer to your participant participation packet. Within this packet you will encounter supportive statistical data, marital verbal and non-verbal strategy scripts, marital mentoring assignments, as well dossier pertaining to divorce abatement to reassure marital repositioning and reestablishment. Welcome.
Introductions are in order. Our founders, Natalie and Ned Kettlehoffer, have a combined total of fifty-three years of marriages between them. Yes, you heard the plural form correctly. Marriages. Natalie married the first time at twenty-one. That marriage lasted fourteen months. The next marriage lasted eight years. The next marriage lasted nine years. As you can see with time Natalie has developed greater marital sustainability skills. Currently, Natalie is entering her fourteenth year of marriage to Ned. Ned married his high school sweetheart and was married for ten months. His next marriage lasted three years. As you can see, he too has developed greater marital sustainability. Currently, Ned is entering fourteen years of marriage with his lovely wife Natalie. As you already know from your purchase of our founders’ twenty-five DVDs seminar and lecture series that these two know exactly which factors guarantee marital failure and subsequently have developed their revolutionary approach that can enumerate these factors. You must first ascertain your pre and post marital motivators, contributory callousness, fidelity incomprehensibility, and situational subterfuge. These factors contribute to the unsustainability of your marriage, or marriages, whichever the case may be. Due to your own dereliction of duty, you have failed or will fail whichever the case may be. Today is the start of a brand new day and if you follow the strategies Natalie and Ned have discovered and developed, you, too, can increase your marital longevity potential factor.
You seem a little surprised. Yes, that’s right. Fifty-three years of marriages. No, not marriage. Marriages. Perhaps that is why you are having problems in your current relationships. Your inability to notice the fine details. Look back at the brochures. It clearly states at the bottom of page ten, yes, there in light blue print, the plural form marriages. Surely, you are alert enough to determine from Natalie and Ned’s online site that neither one of them is older than fifty years old.
Yes, you in the back row. So, you are saying that it is someone else’s fault that you cannot read light blue on white and that you lack the thoroughness to investigate every page of a brochure for an endeavor for which you have shelled out a substantial amount of money. You are saying that the print should have been black letters on white paper and on page one. So, you are saying that your failure to pay attention is the fault of someone else other than yourself. Why didn’t you consult your wife? That is your wife sitting next to you, isn’t it? Or, are you both blaming each other right now for failing to read the fine print? You both are passing the blame between each other like a hot coal. Go ahead, grit your teeth, roll your eyes, clench your jaws, and move away from each other ever so slightly as if nobody else will notice your glances of derision at each other. That’s it, Honey Bun and Sweetie. Go ahead and blame each other.
Moving on. Madam, in the blue dress. What? Speak up. Muttering does nothing to enhance your communicative intra and interpersonal interfaceability. Sir, stop that. You cannot finish your wife’s thoughts for her. No, you do not know what she is thinking or trying to say. You, Sir, are not God. You are a control freak.
Go ahead, Madam, ask your question. Go ahead, don’t be shy. Don’t be intimidated. Sir, do not shush your wife. Go ahead, Madam, speak. You forgot what you wanted to ask? It’s not important, anyway? Well, Sir, do you feel you successfully destroyed your wife’s last shred of confidence? Are you happy now? It’s a safe bet that in your mind you are plotting to buy her flowers in the gift shop; right, to make up for embarrassing her and belittling her. Right? Kiss slap, kiss slap. You are a bully, Sir. Natalie was married to a bully for fourteen months. Madam, your marriage mentor will be Crissy Carlson. Crissy will assist you in post marital implosive healing. Sir, your marital sustainability factor is at a negative zero degree. Don’t take that tone. Nobody on this panel is impressed or threatened by you.
There will be no more questions at this time. Our panel would like to begin personal introductions. Please, I said no more questions. No, you can’t get your money back. No, absolutely not. Your credit cards have already been charged. Did you not comprehend the word nonrefundable? That means not refundable.
Are you back on that, again? What difference does it make? Fifty-three years in any combination is still fifty-three years. Where are they? Do you mean Natalie and Ned? No, as you can clearly see they are not actually on the panel. Natalie and Ned have provided each marriage mentor with pre-recorded telecasts. You will be referred to these telecasts during question and answer segments of your workshops.
You in the back, what did you just say? No, Natalie and Ned never indicated or implied that they would be on this cruise. Oh, you assumed. Why would you make an assumption like that?
Hey, where is everybody going? You can’t leave. The ship just left the harbor and you didn’t even notice. Maybe, that’s your problem. You don’t pay attention. Why are you getting so angry? Maybe your anger is the reason you are failures at your relationships. Go ahead; throw the blame at someone other than yourselves. Go ahead. You are the source of your own suffering. If you weren’t so sniveling, self-centered, deceptive, controlling, unfaithful, and cruel, you wouldn’t be here, now would you?
Hey, hey, don’t throw that. Hey, don’t. . .
Category: Fiction, Short Story