Before we got married, Jamie and I took a mandatory church marriage class.
The Baptist church would not marry anyone without this rigorous class because they ran the real risk that unschooled couples would engage in premarital relations, which is not only irresponsible and reckless, but could also lead to dancing.
So the idea was: After eight weeks of rigorous marriage training, couples would receive an official certificate, trimmed in gold, with their names on it. And this certificate would prove to the world, without a doubt, that couples were spiritually, and emotionally prepared to take the multiple choice exam in the back of the book.
Thus, my future-wife and I arrived at the fellowship hall each week to participate in courses to prepare us for cohabitation.
These courses featured many “fun” games which the workbook termed “marital building exercises.” Many of which were developed by actual professional marriage book authors, some of whom were still married.
One such exercise was the Egg Test.
In this game, the future-bride balances an egg on a spoon clenched between her teeth. She wears a blindfold and walks across a room.
Then, future-husband stands on the opposite side of the room (over by the piano). He uses ONLY his words to guide his mate through an obstacle course made entirely of folding chairs which represent the confusing Maze of Life.
Tacked to the chairs are Post-It notes, labeled with various day-to-day marriage problems like: “car trouble,” “bills,” “career,” “children,” “the threat of nuclear war,” “sharing the covers,” etc.
The woman stumbles over chairs, spoon held in her mouth, and is thus forced to either trust her mate, or remove her blindfold and declare that her mate is a horse’s ass.
I realize that non-Baptists might think this game sounds ridiculous. But this exercise equips young couples with the wisdom needed for facing the increasingly common threat of folding chairs.
But I am getting off track here. As of last December, my wife and I have been married for 21 years. We are happy. And we do not balance eggs anymore unless absolutely necessary.
Still, marriage class was valuable. Mainly, because many times we remember that class and laugh so hard one of us has a urinary even.
Throughout the years we’ve laughed a lot. I’ve always enjoyed making this woman laugh.
Some years back, doctors found something in my wife’s breast. It was a truly bad day. We did what all couples probably do. We tried not to talk about it. We tried to live normal lives. We went to biopsies.
At night we would lie in bed and hold each other. I remained awake, smelling her hair, feeling the smoothness of her skin. Praying.
After months of waiting, tests, and worrying, the doctor gave us good news. I cried in the exam room—right in front of the doc. And I’ll never forget how that felt. What a day.
Anyway, I don’t know why I’m telling you this except that today I was in my storage shed. I found a dusty box of books. I opened it and found an old workbook.
The book made me laugh. It made me sniff. Because in the back pages was a certificate with two names on it, trimmed in gold. Two names that do not sound right unless they are said together.
No eggs were harmed in the making of this column.