Trophy Wives

This is probably the last time that I mention my recent travels.  But on the flight to Miami, there was a couple behind me that I thought was a father and his adult daughter.  As the flight progressed, I was able to hear occasional snippets of conversation between the two of them.  I can best describe my overall impression as follows.

Now, the dude was maybe in his fifties, so he not forced-to-retire old.  But he was forced-to-retire ugly.  The woman was in her mid-twenties and was pretty damned alright, if you ask me.  Yes, it’s entirely possible that this was a match made in heaven, the only hitch being that he would return to the factory long before she did.  But a lot of their conversation argued against that conclusion.  For instance, the couple apparently lived in Florida but traveled often and, although the wife had shopped at fancy stores wherever they went, she thought New York’s Fifth Avenue shops were the nicest and couldn’t wait to raid them.  So she was very high maintenance and, in response, he was very Master Craftsman.  Besides, he dozed off once and I’m pretty sure that, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pick his pocket.

I am not against May-December romances.  Far from it.  I am all for May-December romances.  Hell, I condone February-October romances.  It’s safe to say that all of the months could hook up with one another and I would be totally fine with it.  In fact, if all the individual days of the year decided to join in the action and have a massive orgy with daisy chains and bukkake and swaps, I would buy the video.  I would find it perfectly acceptable if Easter fucked Christmas.  How is that for open-minded?

But this was a marriage.  She was his trophy wife.  If he were just fucking her, that would be just fine.  He wasn’t just fucking her.  He had married her.

If you don’t see how wrong this is, consider this scenario.  You are a middle-aged dude having a middle-aged crisis.  It sounds very Tolkienesque, and it’s just as serious.  One night you go bowling with your buddies and you kick their asses at bowling.  (You can substitute the word “golfing” for “bowling” if you want to bring class into this.) That night, you are a bowling lunatic, a madman.  You have a great time but it’s just not enough, what with your hair falling out and your eyesight getting worse and your dick only getting semi-hard no matter how disgusting the porn is.  So, you go to a store and you buy yourself a bowling trophy to commemorate your victory.  And not just any bowling trophy, a platinum, diamond studded bowling trophy with an adjustable-rate mortgage that you will be paying for until you die.  When people stop by and ask you how you won the fabulous trophy on your mantle, you tell them that you don’t mean to brag but you kicked ass and wanted a permanent reminder, so you bought a trophy for yourself that you will be paying for forever.  Do you yet see how fucking pathetic this is?

You don’t buy yourself a trophy!  By the same token, you don’t buy yourself a trophy wife.  Old dudes, it’s great that you have some cash.  And you’re right that you can’t take it with you, so you might as well spend it on fast cars and loose women.  But don’t buy the women permanently. 

Do what any self-respecting younger person would do.  Win the woman for a little while and secretly videotape her having sex with you.  The video is then your trophy.  When you distribute it on the internet, you will gain the admiration of the world.  True, some of us might email you and say, “Rick, dude, it doesn’t even look like either one of you is having a good time fucking.  And is that her nose or is she wearing one of those DIY nose straighteners?  The footage is so grainy I can’t tell.” We ask these questions not to berate your accomplishments, but rather because the video is just not enough.  We want all the nasty details.  Like, where was your camera when you were doing Shannen Doherty, dude?  And is it true that Pamela Anderson won’t eat anything that comes from an animal?  Yeah, we didn’t think so.

Anyway, I digress.  What was my point again?  Oh, yeah, this rent versus lease-to-replace versus lease-to-buy versus buy thing.  Are you getting it yet, old and not-so-wizened dudes?

I’ll write a little more about prostitution some other time.  Not because it is relevant to this topic (though it is), but because I simply can’t help myself.  It is in my thoughts far too often.  And, old dudes, it should be in yours, too.