Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

Awhile ago with cash in hand (a fairly substantial sum) I walked into the store and came home with my new Playstation 3. I am if there was a doubt, an occasional video game junkie. Not like some of my fiance's coworkers who read up on the latest updates and swap stories from the techie side of it. But simply a guy, who every couple of months will spend a week solid frittering away every moment of free time trying to beat a new game. In and of itself it not that big of a thing but it was enough that I included in my marriage disclaimer.

Marriage Disclaimer

To be honest I hadn't planned on going to France nor did I really want to. I was going to Ireland, not Frog land. But when it became apparent that I couldn't not* invite her and she said she wanted to go to France we compromised, and went to France. We arrived after taking an over night ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo just before New Year's Eve. Having arrived six hours early for the departure we decided that once we had checked our bags to grab a pint and dinner. Having approached two establishments that both had large colorful signs that proudly proclaimed "we serve food" we were looked at like we were speaking a foreign language when we asked for food. So to console myself I spent the next five hours drinking English Budweiser. Not nearly as good as our own but then again what does one expect from the English?

The seas that night were exceptionally rough, and the ship was locked down. The Fish and Chips (yes I really did order it everywhere I could) I ate at a white trash motel restaurant suddenly didn't seem like the best thing in the world. The Budweiser of course had nothing to do with it as "the King" is a benevolent ruler who bestows upon his loyal subjects great wit and insight whenever they are in his presence. In the middle of the night my soon to be fiance gets an anxiety attack and we decide to search the ship for help. Aside from my lack of sea legs, the drink had finally set and I was left wanting for resourcefulness. We waylaid one stranger and my fiance tried bad French for direction to the ship's hospital (she does have a flare for the dramatic at times). To which he laughed and replied, "How should I know? I'm English" after which he returned to the bar. So here we are at 1:00 in the morning walking all over the ship with my fiance swearing that, "she's going to die" while I try to reassure her, occasionally stopping to turn and projectile vomit in multiple locations (yes vacations are lovely). When we finally came upon the help which was incidentally very close to our room the French found our predicament hilarious. I sincerely hoped they kept that sense of humor the next morning when they were able to appreciate the many finer points of English cuisine.

Suffice to say that my arrival into France was not the graceful entry of a seasoned world traveller, or even innocence abroad, but a rather dehydrated, hungover, hungry and tired American who despite my unwillingness to boycott France was still leary of the French. But the next two days were spent recuperating in Mont St. Michel, shopping in St. Malo and climbing around the outlying forts when the tide was out. It has been noted before that I am not adventurous when it comes to eating, but I'm also not the kind of American that goes to other countries just to stand in line at McDonalds. So for the duration of my stay in France (who make terrible coffee by the way) choking down numerous dishes that my palette found less than desirable and a number of cheeses that reminded me of how my socks smelled at the end of a work day. The creme de la creme of it all though was the New Year's Eve dinner (50 euro a head) that served little pigs in a blanket as a course. I mean come on, pigs in a fucking blanket. What does this have to do with a marriage disclaimer you ask? Excellent question, nothing really really except as a maybe a prologue. Though this trip was the basis for this blog title.

Having decided some time previously to propose marriage I decided that I would do it in France at Mont St. Michel on New Years Eve blah, blah, blah. But being the analytical sort of person that I am I decided to take a long view of things and be logical. Here I was whisking my girlfriend off to Europe. Taking her shopping, buying French lingerie while we holed up in a castle (well at least down the street from one) and going down on one knee on New Year's Eve. If I had picked up a chick on the way to the airport I'm pretty sure that I could've gotten her to say yes (not that I would've, but I could've). This being the case I decided to forgo the usual speech about my undying love and devotion and all of the wonderful things we could if we spent our lives together. No, instead I spent a solid half hour before my proposal walking the walls of Mont St. Michel outlining all of my faults, shortcomings and defects. A few key points were as follows:

• I'll never be anything other than a construction worker
• I'll never get any better at putting the toilet seat down
• I'll never be in any better shape than I am right now
• I will continue to go on an "occasional" beer binge and get fall down drunk at inoppurtune times and "possibly" vomit on the front lawn where all of the neighbors can see me
• I'll never outgrow playing video games
• I will continue to think porn is great no matter how often I get laid

Now admittedly, I don't do all of these things all the time but I wanted the record to be straight just in case any of these things ever came up as an issue of contention.

* Yes, I'm aware that I used a double negative. I felt that writing, "I had to invite her" was missing the point of the sentence to begin with as it suggested a sense of coercion which is most certainly not the case.