HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! What’s it like to make your way through life with someone? Roz Chast has quite a unique perspective . . .
Last week, my beloved high school friend, Wendy sent me the following Roz Chast perspective from the book, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time written by Roz and Patricia Marx:
At birth, you — an ox — are allotted a cart that contains your baggage: your hopes and dreams, but also your phobias, your hang-ups, your obsessions, and whatever mental, physical, and emotional stuff you inherited from your ox parents. Wherever you go, you must lug your cart behind you. But someday you might meet a special ox. If you are “serious” about each other, you will be issued a couples cart into which both of you can now throw all your crap. The cart is heavy and a little unwieldy. If you have children, for a stretch you will be lugging them as well.
One day, one of you will want to turn down Old Huckleberry Lane because there’s a cute little farmers’ market down there, and the other will want to stay on I-95. You will have a fight, but eventually work it out because (this is important), no one gets to steer the cart all the time. On the bright side, if one of you has a sore ankle, the other can work a little harder to pull the cart, and vice versa. Besides, it’s more fun to have another ox with whom to pull the goddamn cart. You can gossip about other oxen and discuss various ox-centric topics, and if you are lucky, you can make each other laugh. “Look, there’s Farmer Joe. Why does his head look like a rutabaga?”
The point is that life is a schlep, and it’s easier to get through it with another ox.
In case you need some, the New Yorker published some contemporary “pick-up” lines if you want to meet a guy in Brooklyn:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/pickup-lines-that-work-every-time-if-youre-trying-to-pick-me-a-guy-who-lives-in-brooklyn-up
I’m still feeling as low as ox shit this morning. Doesn’t help that I have a root canal scheduled for later this morning — which I learned yesterday will cost twice as much as the one I had two years ago.
However, as long as I’m out of bed and have taken off the clothes I’ve been in since Tuesday and am trying to talk myself into taking a shower, I’ll take a moment to share how lucky I am that the strongest bond that Adrienne and I share is laughter. If we didn’t have that, I doubt I’d ever get out of bed when the darkness of depression sets in.
So sorry for the darkness AND the root canal! What a way to start the weekend.
Thanks for sharing the Roxbury Chast piece. I am blessed to have another oxen helping me haul my cart full of crap! I’ll share this with him later!
You are VERY blessed to have your ox to help you haul your crap.
Four hours later, we (bless Adrienne, she drove me) are back from the root canal. The GOOD news — it’s over. The BAD news — the crown that had to be drilled through could not be saved. Root canal. New crown. I need a bigger cart.
Thanks for this delightfully imaginative piece. Images like this one make “life together” a little easier, a little more fun. Having pulled my/our cart with my husband of almost 58 years, I can affirm the bit about laughter. We do laugh a lot here–at each other, at ourselves, as well as at all the Farmer Joes in our lives. I can also affirm, after all this time, that a root canal in the relationship is sometimes needed too! Been there, done that.
That said, hope you’re feeling okay after all that drilling and poking, and so sorry the crown could not be saved. Don’t see much to laugh about there, but knowing you, I suspect you just might find something there to laugh about–or at least Adrienne might be able to find something.
The only joke I made today was when Sharon told me she had to avoid chewing. “Well, that means a liquid diet for you. Alcohol.”
Happy Valentine’s Day to all.