Matrimonial Bliss?

It happened in a public restroom..

I was in my own cubicle minding my own business (or if you prefer, busy with my own business) when an excited chattering burst forth from somewhere in the room.  As is usual, I ignored the chattering – which is to say that I did not eavesdrop, though neither did I close my ears against the barrage of incoherent words.

By the time I was washing my hands, she came out from behind one of the closed doors, a phone held up to her ear.  She came and stood by me, and she had the vacant look of one who was trying to have a private conversation in a public place.  I was therefore able to study her reflection in the mirror with ease.  It wasn’t hard to figure out why she wanted the conversation to be private.  I could only think that she desired that the phone conversation to have taken place anywhere else – preferably not while she was on the toilet in a public restroom.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” she was saying.

I grinned.  I couldn’t help it.  At least she didn’t notice.

“Yes, yes, yes!  Yes, I will marry you!”

The novelty over, my grin became a quiet smile, and I focused on washing my hands and freshening up.

“Although… there’s a bit of a problem.  I have to get an annulment first.  I was married before.”

Ooops…

A short silence, followed by a hasty explanation: “Yes, I was married before.  But that was a long time ago.  Don’t worry, it’ll be easy enough to fix.  It’s no trouble.”

Hmp.  There’s no trouble indeed, provided you have the money to spare – to pay the lawyers and the psychologists for the fat legal and court fees, and to back up your grounds for an annulment.  Sure, you could get an annulment easy enough – after about two years (and that was a generous estimate) as your lawyers negotiated their way around the extremely conservative laws of a Catholic country who wouldn’t even call a divorce by anything other than a brilliant stretch of a moralistic legal concept.  Technically, we did not have divorce in this country.  And then, of course, you had to throw the dice on whether or not you got a conservative or a liberal judge.

”Yes, yes!  I will marry you!  I’m very excited!”

I smiled again.  I would be happy for any woman who received a matrimonial proposal from a man she would agree to marry.  Though not, as I said, by choice, while on a toilet in a public restroom.  And not, I can only suppose, to have to answer “yes” with a caveat.  But it was none of my business.

She was alone, too.  I think most other women there overheard the phone conversation, but the newly engaged kept herself aloof.  I think she was wondering what she ought to do next.

~ by dwanderingmind on October 27, 2009.