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After years of marriage, how do people recall that momentous wedding
day? Some are teary-eyed and nostalgic. Others show undisguised joy.
But there are those who try to hide their bitterness and puzzlement.
The question on their lips is: “How can I be so stupid?”
People are angry, sad or glad on their wedding
anniversary. The lucky ones call it a lifetime achievement. But you
also hear such wry comment as “It’s a life sentence.”
How you celebrate your wedding anniversary will
depend on your situation. If you’re happily married, you look
forward to an annual celebration. The date is forever etched in your
memory.
If your marriage is not working well, you tend
to forget and somebody has to jog your memory. You’re like a bad
creditor blacklisted by loan sharks because your memory fails when
the payment is due. When you forget the wife is in a foul mood.
Wife: Hoy, you know what day it is?
You: Well, it’s not payday, and it’s not my
birthday.
Wife: I don’t care about your birthday. What
you need is a big whack in the head.
Because divorce is not allowed in the
Philippines, many people are forever stuck in a bad marriage. One
man was in the middle of a big celebration with his wife, his
children and grandchildren on their 50th wedding anniversary. He was
asked to talk about their marriage and everybody expected him to say
nice things to his wife, which he did. He referred to her as
“tried and tested companion all these years.” But their moments
of unhappiness showed when the wife, who was a little hard of
hearing, said when it was her turn to speak: “Well, you also
failed the test. After all these years, I’m tired of you, too.”
Some people ruin a good relationship with their
indiscretions and fits of irresponsible behavior. The foremost cause
of marriage breakup is infidelity, which many couples describe as
the worse kind of cheating.
The men, however, will never admit they are
cheats. Even if the wife catches his husband with his pants down, he
will jump off the window and later tell her: “It was not me.
Maybe, the guy looks like me; he even acts and dresses like me. But
it was not me, I swear.”
In Australia, a wife was quick to get her hands
on some evidence when she rushed home from work and her husband
would not let her enter the bedroom. But she insisted. Inside she
found a lacy black panty, which she described as “size humongous”
and a condom, which she said was “size small.”
Anna of Queensland took her revenge at her
“soon to be ex-husband” of 22 years by auctioning the “huge”
panty and his “size small” condom packet on eBay. Anna says of
the panty: “They are so huge I thought they make someone a nice
shawl or, even better, something for Halloween, perhaps.” The
photograph of the items, which had a starting price of 69 U.S. cents
down from an original 99 cents, had received 47 hits.
I would not rule out the possibility of some
Filipino wives using the Internet to embarrass the unfaithful
husband and display his “small size” condom on eBay. Let the
world know the size of his condom.
When angry wives elsewhere in the world started
using the kitchen knife to cut off the penis as a form of
retribution, many Filipino wives followed suit. They can do the same
with eBay. The knife and Internet are attractive alternatives to the
slow justice in the courts of law.
Many Filipinos are not unfaithful in the sense
that they have “one-night stands” or they visit a whorehouse and
they “get in, get it over with, and get out.” They’re even
worse. If they can afford it, they secretly maintain one or two more
families, and they think their friends look at them with envy. When
they die, their funeral wake becomes a “nice to know you” affair
among their wives and children.
It may take some time before Filipino wives
could avail themselves of the services of eBay because many areas of
the country have no access to the Internet, which is fine. In the
meantime, they can use the reliable kitchen knife.
The Internet, of course, should not be used
merely to display huge panties and small size condom packets. It
should also be used to display knives of various sizes and forms.
The wives can even put the knives in a nice case, frame it and hung
it up the wall like an expensive painting.
The knives tell the husbands to be faithful and
thoughtful about that momentous wedding day many years ago. It might
also be a good idea for any husband to gift-wrap a set of knives and
present it to the wife with a note that says “Happy
Anniversary.” For his peace of mind, he can put a note on the box
that says, “For display only.”
--palaciosjp@sss.gov.ph
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