My Awful Marriage

At community college I met my future wife, Jane Ann Brown. I was doggedly pursuing an Associates degree in business administration and Jane Ann was studying massage therapy. I worked at Taco Nacho and was able to buy real clothes, so the quilt scraps were no longer an issue. I tried not to stand directly under the fluorescent lights in the classrooms, so the acne scars didn't show so much. I asked Jane Ann if she could do anything about the crick I kept in my neck from lugging around 20 pounds of books every day. She said she was "always looking for someone to practice on" and we met that night. I still had the crick in my neck the next day, but I didn't much care.

Before I knew it, Jane Ann was expecting a baby and we were married. Mother sent her regards from the women's correctional facility, where she had gone after being convicted for accidentally offing her landlady. She had meant to hit her with the daquiri blender but had not meant to kill, so she only got sentenced for manslaughter.

Things went south for us when little Lawrence Jr. was still a toddler and Jane Ann joined a massage therapy group and began working. The money was good and came in handy while I was finishing up my degree. After about a year, though, Jane Ann began coming home later each night and got lots of calls from some guy named Sven. Apparently, he's the guy who founded the massage therapy group and he studied with some old massage Yoda guy in Sweden. All I know is, Sven called my house more than the timeshare sales people.

Next thing I knew, Jane Ann was shacked up with Sven and I was left with Lawrence Jr. (or "LJ" as I liked to call him), my Business AA degree, a substantial student loan debt and the bookbag-induced crick Jane Anne had never managed to work out. I began to doubt her abilities as a massage therapist, though Sven and I could both attest to her bedside manner.

I was promoted to assistant manager at Taco Nacho, which helped keep me and LJ afloat as I searched for a job utilizing my shiny new degree.

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