JINX MEANS THE END OF MY MARRIAGE

Let me just preface this story by saying that, when you get right down to it, I'm barely more than a ten year-old boy sporting a man sized penis. I am. I know it. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I’m also using the term “man sized” quite liberally.

On top of that, I’ll also admit that this is a combination more dangerous than Pop Rocks and a can of Coke, or Beyonce and a microphone, or the parents of Beyonce and a condom with a hole in it.

I really don’t like, Beyonce.

Sometimes in a marriage there are words and moments that simply can’t be taken back. More often than not these words are said out of anger or frustration, and once they’ve escaped your mouth and entered through the holes in your significant other’s ears, they're stuck there - forever.

When such a thing happens, you’ll likely never look at each other the same way again. The touch of your fingers won’t produce the same closeness and the kiss of your lips won’t elicit a spark.

Like paying full price to see a Will Ferrell movie that isn’t Anchorman, these are the moments you can’t come back from.

Such a moment has occurred in my own marriage.

"Jinx!"

That was, me - screaming jinx with every ounce of breath in my lungs, just moments after my wife and I muttered the exact same word at the exact same time.

You've heard of the game of jinx, right? Of course you have.

It’s simple. If two people happen to say the same thing at the same time and one of those people utters the word jinx, it forces the other person to remain silent until the curse of jinx has been released.

Come on, you’ve heard of that before, right? Everyone has heard of jinx - even an idiot like you.

Oops. Wait. I didn’t mean to say that.

I wasn’t talking about you.

I was, um. I was talking about the guy behind you. Yep, that guy right there - that guy in the hat.

He’s an idiot.

Not you.

You’re awesome.

When my wife presented me with the opportunity to proclaim jinx, I took it! I devoured it! I ravaged it! I took it harder and faster and deeper than an automated sex machine! And I did it in impressive fashion I might add.

I was pretty proud of myself – snagging the moment and making it mine like that.

It was an impressive thing.

You should be impressed too.

It was a big moment for me. The selling of my soul to the devil for a single moment of glory years ago had finally paid off. In that instant I was a man among men. I was I was a young Steve McQueen, riding around on my motorcycle and batting the ladies away with stick.

I was a superstar and I was on cloud nine.

I was on cloud fucking nine with a totally nude, Salma Hayek and a DVD copy of the seventh season of Star Trek The Next Generation - until my stupid wife had to do and ruin it.

"Steven, did you just say jinx?"

"What the hell do you think you’re doing? You know you can’t talk, right? I jinxed you!"

"Steven, I'm not playing jinx."

Son of a bitch.

This was how she was going to handle the situation?

The balls on this woman.

I wasn’t going to stand for it. "Sorry, you have to. You've been jinxed. You can’t talk until I say you can talk. You don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

"What? That's not even how it's played. I thought I had to buy you a coke or something?"

Oh. Dear. God.

Did she really just have the nerve to bring up the moronic “buy you a Coke” version?

The nutsack on this woman!

"That's how girls played it. I don't acknowledge that version of jinx. No one should. People with penis’ play the old school version and in the old school version you can't talk until I tell you that you can talk…so shut up."

She was looking at me like I was an idiot - like I was an eight year-old dancing around the room in a pair of He-Man Underoos with a racing stripe down the crack.

On the flipside of that coin, I was looking at her like she was from another planet - like she’d just dropped her pants, took an alien dump in her hands and smeared it seductively onto her sixteen alien nipples.

Why was she even talking? She wasn’t supposed to be talking! The woman had been completely and thoroughly jinxed! There was no question as to what occurred and no question regarding the legitimacy of the jinx! She was spiting in the face of everything the game stood for! She was trouncing on a gentlemanly pact spanning three generations! She was committing a crime against the very laws of nature itself!

It was blasphemy!

It was a slap in the face of what whatever God you happen to believe in! She was backhanding Buddha! She was kicking Jesus right in the scones! She was throwing handfuls of peanuts at Ganesha and using the robe of Zeus to blow her nose! She was standing backstage at a Journey concert in 1982, and telling Steve Perry his mullet looked stupid!

She was just asking for trouble.

"Steven, I'm not playing jinx."

Unbelievable.

I should have slapped her right then and there. I should have slapped her so hard that my hand left a print she’d have to wear like the scarlet letter.

"Why not?"

"Um, I don’t know. Maybe because I'm a grown up?"

Now she was being sarcastic?

Last I checked there wasn't a get out of jinx card that came with the dropping of balls or a first period. Age wasn’t excuse and I wasn’t buying it. She knew better than to tamper with the very fabric that held the universe together and yet that’s exactly what she was doing. She knows better than to mess with jinx.

"So, you're just going to keep talking then?"

"Yep."

“Not going to shut up?”

“Nope.”

It was on.

When she reached for the phone to call someone from work, I intercepted it. I wedged the receiver between my butt cheeks and let one rip. It was a good one - a good stinky one. It was the sort of rip that rattled the windows and registered on the Richter scale – the sort of rip worthy of the word rip.

"You don't want to play jinx, fine.” I handed her the phone. “Go ahead and call someone on your poo phone, then."

Personally, I think I went easy on her.