February 1, 2012
The
boat sails by, the shore remains
by
Vance Gutzman
There are days, since
I've been married, when I feel like an Italian cruise ship.
I'm listing.
 More accurately, the
wife is listing, and it's highly likely that I'll be lisping after she
punches me in the mouth for comparing her to an Italian cruise ship.
The wife, she's more like a catamaran, really, because her twin hulls
send my outrigger out to sea.
And that's so unlike this one girl I went out with.
She had a face that launched a thousand ships, but only because the
Greeks had exhausted their supply of champagne bottles and then later
their entire economy.
Still, she brought her own Trojans to the party, and what with the
spartan lifestyle I was leading at the time, they proved to be my
achilles heel.
I could list a number of reasons why I did the things I used to do,
but, like the old Italian nautical proverb says, after the ship has
sunk, everyone knows how she might have been saved.
When I say that there are days, since I've been married, when I feel
like an Italian cruise ship, that does not mean my marriage is on the
rocks.
Far from it, for while the old Latin nautical proverb may be true that
each man makes his own shipwreck, the old Russian nautical proverb is
equally true that a boat stands firmer with two anchors.
Russian sailors also said that not everything is a mermaid that dives
into the water, and I dated women in the past who proved that proverb
true as well, especially the ones who actually talked like sailors,
Russian or otherwise.
Yeah, I could list a number of reasons, but since I've been married
I've got other lists to worry about.
Grocery lists in particular stand out, like reefs normally would to the
captain of an Italian cruise ship, because since I've been married I
can't leave the house without one.
Now I may not be the manliest of men, in terms of hunting and
gathering, but up until I got married I did pride myself on being able
to navigate grocery stores without the aid of grocery lists, better
even than the captain of an Italian cruise ship.
"Make not your sail too big for your ballast," I always used to say
upon entering a grocery store, quoting that old English nautical
proverb.
"Yeah," the cashiers would mutter behind my back, "you can't load a
small boat with heavy cargo," quoting the old Chinese nautical proverb
in return.
I just sailed right in like a drunken sailor, buying whatever my
appetite felt like, bearing in mind the old Creole nautical
proverb that the sea breeze blows the pelican where he wants to
go.
Pelicans, which smell like fish but taste like chicken, are actually
very hard to cook, putting me in mind of the old French nautical
proverb that if the seawater were hotter we would catch boiled fish.
Still, I didn't need grocery lists to remind me what to to buy back
then, for impulse buying was the order of the day.
Yeah, I used to be impulsive when it came to grocery shopping, much
like the captain of an Italian cruise ship liner who impulsively steers
a course too close to the rocks in an effort to impress the chicks
waving on shore.
Sometimes I'd hit on women in the grocery store, but usually it was the
other way around.
"You little bastard," they'd yell, "it was you who broke up with me, so
stop writing about me in that stupid column of yours!!"
Then they'd hit me, or hurl a frozen pelican in my general direction,
and then stomp off in a huff down the pickle aisle, angrily singing
Russian sea shanties.
"Oh, yeah? Well say that three times quickly!" I'd shout at their
retreating backs, putting me in mind of the old Cape Breton nautical
proverb that if you want to drown yourself, don't torture yourself with
shallow water.
I've been married long enough now that ex-girlfriends have forgotten
what I wrote about them in the past, and much like pelicans they have
short memories, even if they did stick me with big bills.
I rarely purchase pelicans anymore, nor do I leave the house without a
grocery list since I've been married, when I travel to the grocery
store.
"Nodding the head does not row the boat," says the wife to me, quoting
that old Irish nautical proverb as she hands me a list with twelve
items on it when all I wanted to get was a jar of pickles.
Sometimes I edit the grocery lists the wife compiles for me, or forget
them at home, or lose them in transit somewhere between our home and
the grocery store, and it riles her up like an angry sea.
"It is too late to learn how to swim when the water is up to your
lips," she scolds, quoting that old Danish nautical proverb.
So lately, in self-defence, I've taken to taking the grocery lists
directly to my lawyer once I'm finished with the shopping, to get them
notarized as proof that I've purchased everything the wife has written
down.
My lawyer and I, we go through the shopping bags, checking off each
item I purchased against the items that were marked down on the wife's
grocery list.
Halfway through our endeavours, he pulls out a frozen pelican, and
gives me the same quizzical look over the rim of his glasses that he
gave me that day I asked him to sue Penthouse Forum for plagiarizing my
letters to Santa Claus.
"Better poor on land than rich at sea," my lawyer sighs, quoting a
different old Danish nautical proverb, while affixing a seal to my
grocery list and handing me a bill for services rendered.
"Don't buy any frozen pelican," were the wife's parting words as I left
the house that morning, eerily reminiscent of what the Italian cruise
ship captain's wife said to him as he left for work.
"Don't try to impress any chicks," she admonished, hearkening back to
that old Cambodian nautical proverb that the boat sails by, the shore
remains.
She really should have written that down on a list for him, like the
wife does for me.
"The sea never buys fish," the wife greets me when I return home with
the groceries, quoting that old Turkish nautical proverb.
"Yeah," I says, whipping out my frozen pelican, "Well, a bird in the
hand...!"
Is not worth two in the bush, I find out later that night when I find
myself sleeping solo on the couch.
Ah, well, you can't complain about the sea if you suffer shipwreck for
the second time, the old Icelandic sailors say.
And they know more than a thing or two about frozen pelicans, even if
it wasn't on the list of their most favourite things to do.
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