Feeling Like You're Constantly on the Brink of Having a Heart Attack Has Its Perks

Quick background: My roommate Rosemary works as a reading tutor in a high school and also has a close relationship with one of the English teachers. This teacher decided today to have some fun and mock her in front of his rather large class, accusing her and our friend Joseph of having a secret passion for each other. I have a passing acquaintance with the teacher, so I decided to defend Rosemary's honor. I sent him an e-mail that reads as follows:

Master Rutter:

I am here to provide a ground-zero perspective/defense of the implied romantic entanglements of Rosemary Larkin and Joseph Moore.

But before I dive in, I can't allow your abuse of power to pass without a stern reprimand.

Presenting your version of the Rosemary-Joseph love affair to your students, in an environment where you as instructor wield significant credibility, is an argument style that is beneath your persuasive abilities. Also, the inclusion of teenagers in any accusation of affection is tantamount to whipping up a mob against evolutionary biologists at a Wednesday prayer meeting in the South. Even before this Twilight Generation, teens have had a long history of being constantly on the brink of hysteria, and they certainly don't need your muckraking to push them over the edge. Think of those poor, excitable kids, Rutter, and restrain your need to be validated in your wrongthinking.

And now to the meat of the issue: Joseph and Rosemary. Watching TV. K-I-S-S-I----No. Absolutely not. I've known Joseph since we were married in the fourth grade play, and I've alternately loathed from afar and lived with Rosemary since we were twelve. From that unique position of expertise, I can say--without a shred of doubt or wishful thinking--that Rosemary and Joseph have as much of a chance of getting together as I have a shot at the Heisman. This is not something to mourn over. My heart isn't broken over the lack of another shiny paperweight, and I can assure you that neither Rosemary or Joseph are nursing any melancholy wishes for "what-might-have-been."

How dare I speak with such authority concerning other people's inner feelings? Observation has provided me with enough information to consider my findings conclusive. After 15 months of witnessing the movie nights, soda runs, early morning rides to work and break-up talks, I can declare without any outlying data that Rosemay and Joseph have the combined chemistry and sexual tension of a mis-matched pair of oven mitts. The kind of oven mitts where one was crocheted for you by your senile great-aunt and is slowly devolving into a singed mass of unravelling yarn and the other is large, serviceable, but with shiny yellowed stains of questionable origin that make you relieved to take them off as soon as the tray has been removed from the oven.

Kindly take this into account before you choose to take another flight into the charming but unsubstantiated realm of Blind Man's Bluff Matchmaking. And don't beat yourself up too much over your mistake--it isn't entirely your fault. You simply must remember that you are severely handicapped as a Happily Married Man. Married Persons suffer from dating amnesia, meaning when they look at two people of a legal age they can't remember why that isn't enough to equal a couple. Also, as a Happily Married Man, you've had your best friend as a spouse for so long that you no longer recall that while you may have both in one person, correlation does not indicate causation.

Enjoy your day,

Mary Shurtz

I know. I'm hilarious. Really, I take my own breath away. He responded very quickly, and while the response was funny, it couldn't touch this masterpiece.

So, the moral of the story is: when your brain is being pulled in twelve directions at once, that is when you have the most potential to be the most creatively dynamic you've ever been. Yayyy masochism as a lifestyle.