Hamster Husband

I remember being curled up in bed, writhing in pain, making deals with God. (True, I’m not sure I believe in a higher power, but these were the pleas of the desperate.) I’d say things like, “God, Allah, Mother Earth, whoever may be listening, if you stop this pain you can take anything from me.” It escalated to me offering my dog Penny (sorry) and finally, in sheer desperation, Matt (uh, triple sorry). Now, I didn’t want the dog or Matt to, you know, perish, but maybe just move out or something. I really wasn’t thinking straight.

I’m thinking about this now because I love Matt dearly – I must have been pretty wacked out to sacrifice him to whatever God I summoned those painful nights (or perhaps he was annoying me with his throat signing, who can remember?!). But he shines even more brightly next to everything that just hasn’t gone right recently. He’s my rock. My best friend. And he lets me write embarrassing stuff about him on this blog, so he pretty much rocks my world.

So there I was, love struck with this beautiful nerd. (Have I mentioned I love nerds? They’re terrific, aren’t they?  Nerds of the engineering persuasion particularly make my heart pitter pat.) But unfortunately, I was brought back to reality earlier this month when I witnessed this:

OMG.  During a perfectly pleasant evening on the Jersey Shore, Matt got in this ball.  Like a drunk hamster on water.  I think it was for kids but when he saw he made the weight limit he was all in.  It really shouldn't have surprised me...

And then it only got worse...How can I SWOON at this?!  There is delightful nerdom, and then there's....there's......THIS.  No grown "man" (notice the quotation marks) should do this.

There were a group of women onlookers.  I was suspicious because they looked perfectly sane and attractive, so obviously one would think they would do what's 100% natural, here: make fun of him.  But I don't think they were.  They must have been restraining themselves.