The hour grows late at the Liquor and Rubber Balls Sports Emporium and Artesian Dentistry, and it’s just me, Crazy Cosmo and her girlfriend whose name I forget, Duck Diamonds (who has spent about the whole night on the phone — not unusual for a professional gambler), and Don Tequila behind the bar. We’re nursing our last drinks.
Something comes on the teevee about a domestic dispute that turns violent — can you imagine? I don’t catch the details, but it seems like it has its origins in a disagreement over disciplining misbehaved offspring matter.
“You can’t ever win,” says Cosmo’s girlfriend, shaking her head. “Back when I was married and raising brats I found a porn magazine under my son’s bed. I knew he’d been whacking off regularly — I did the laundry every week. No big deal, but this magazine was like all S&M, and I was concerned about what a teenager’s first exposures would be.”
“You mean you’d be okay with split wet beaver and giant boobs?” asks Cosmo. “Cuz that’s like more normaler or something?”
“Actually, yeah,” says her equally ditzy friend. “Anyway, I show this shit to my husband when he staggers home and he just stares at it. I finally ask him what he thinks we should do.”
Do go on.
“He says, ‘Well, I’m not sure, but I don’t think spanking him is a good idea’.”
Don Tequila switches off the teevee. “Closing time,” he declares. “Go the fuck home.”
All joking aside, having gone through something like this myself with my own kids, and as a teacher for 25 years, the best way to deal with this is directly. Time for a heart-to-heart conversation about the role of sex, attitudes toward sex partners, etc. Drunk hubby is right about not spanking, but not for the right reasons.