"The real reason I called…"
It's MyUnwife. Why do I want to know why she really called? I've finally tethered somebody down with a phone line and now she's listening to me whine about my ankle. I don't know why she really called. I don't really care. My ankle is the star of this show, and it's only basked in audio spotlight for half an hour. I still have cell time left.
Can you hear me now?
Still, MyUnwife is dogged in purpose, and cuts me off on propose. She plows through with her reasons for calling. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! It's always about her. Fine.
"Why did you call?"
"I wanted to talk about the eldest Brady daughter."
Woo hoo! I always was more of a Marianne fan, but that was a different show. If we're gonna talk Brady, Marcia is just fine.
We're not. We're really gonna talk Boyd divorce. "I called because they mailed some of our paperwork back."
"Complete?"
"No, In-complete. We need to fill in more stuff."
Oh, that’s all. She says that there are yellow rivers of highlight ink where addresses, dates, and favorite movie cameos should have been written. I'm not surprised. There was more paperwork in our settlement than in a James Michener novel. Omitting my dog's middle name from page 4,892? It was bound to happen.
It's funny because we're doing like the FU-EZ divorce. We're not splitting custody hairs into milliseconds, or siphoning out each other's retirement fund. We're getting a divorce. That's it. Our paperwork is the Lord of the Rings
equivalent of a Dick and Jane primer.
See MyUnwife?
See MyUnwife's Ring?
MyUnwife's Ring is in the fire.
Burn ring! Burn!
My Monster Closet of Divorce Paperwork
This goes on for a Fangorn Forest worth of paper and ends with Rob leaping into the molten rock after his marriage.
"My Precious!"
Ok. There is a little more after that. The usual stuff. MyUnwife sharing longing glances with Hobbits and lingering for a lingerie pillow fight. She always was a sucker for hairy toes…Anyway, yeah. That's why she called. She wanted to let me know that she's filled out all she can. Oh, and now I need to go on a quest.
A quest?
Yup. It looks like the court may want an autographed copy of our marriage certificate (cuz otherwise we're just divorcing for fun). MyUnwife says she didn't take it with her. I don't doubt that, but I bite my tongue on the subject.
"Yeah, you left tha-OW!"
"What did you say?'
"Nuffun, I buth muh thungh."
"Oh, ok."
So now I'm searching all the dark shadows where evil dwells. I look in the "wedding box." It's got all the remaining invites, the unity candle, a stack of "congratulation cards," and brims with the curdled milk of irony. I fight back the goblins of depression, but don't find the treasure I seek. I move on.
The next location is the box of pictures. It's a relatively safe place. Lot's of happy villagers, smiling and waving locals, and rarely a clue concerning our marriage. MyUnwife didn't like her picture taken, so there isn't much to worry about. These shadows don't hide any monsters. Still, I am looking for a small box with wedding pictures. It's small but dangerous. When I find it, I peek in, but don't stare directly at it's contents lest I turn to stone. Plenty of memories, but no marriage license.
This leads to another leg of my journey. My ankle is screaming for mercy. All the while, MyUnwife talks through the phone. We're catching up and telling campfire tales of our non-divorce related misadventures. We're friendly. This is a quest for her, but I know that in the end it will benefit us both. It may not be what I've wanted, but I'm a writer. I'm used to the epic tragedy. It all works out in the end. All I have to do is not be more of a Horatio than a Hamlet. Ok, so that wasn't an epic. It just seemed that way in junior high.
"Can't we read about Prince Caspian instead?"
I finally did find the license. It was in the kitchen drawer of many wonders. We all have one. It's where you keep the Entertainment Weekly with Elijah Wood on the cover next to the melon baller of justice, and the napkin ring of power.
one ring to bind them…
That's where I found our license. I came away a little scratched and worn, but I walked away stronger. The monsters I've been avoiding aren't that scary, and my divorce may be epic in size, but it's not epic in scope. It's not my world. It's just little garrisons around the house, and soon I'll ride outside the range of their watchful eye. I just hope I'm better at riding off into the sunset than I am at walking to the end of the driveway.
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