What happened to me?

The Saturday “chores” that require driving I don’t enjoy to places I don’t like so I can spend money I don’t have on things I don’t need. At least it starts well. I get breakfast, often eggs with biscuits and gravy. I would rather stay home and watch the sports games but the wife has a list and a code word, chores, we have chores to do on Saturday. Sociologist expound of how women socialize men, redirecting male aggressiveness to socially useful behavior. Sociologist theorizing that women create the glue of the human community while nurturing the family mystique. This is well documented with scientifically solid research. I personally witnessed an outlaw biker, a dangerous total loser, transformed into a taxpaying man of substance, a good provider and eventually an excellent father, all this due to a tiny young lady. Of course it did end in a messy divorce with great acrimony. Over the decade that I watched my guy friend’s metamorphosis my astonishment was continuous, even after the divorce he remained an excellent father and contributing member of society. When we rode bikes together in our early twenties I would not allow him to my back, in our thirties I would trust him to watch my children. The transformation was total and permanent.

I spent the bulk of my adult life as a single parent, for me the civilizing force was my children. I remarried after the children had grown and left home. I had long since given up the outlaw life style, forsworn drugs and bar room fights. Apparently I was still not quite house trained; apparently there were still some rough edges to be smoothed. Operant conditioning to modify my voluntary behavior was masterfully administered.

Today is Saturday and I am driving to places I don’t want to go and spending money I don’t want to spend. Even intellectually knowing what happened, I can’t even begin to pretend that I truly understand what happened.