Totem Pole

It has taken me an entire day to be able to get to the computer. This whole process of setting up computers leaves me stressed. I hate the mess and the interruption to my routine. I'm uptight and cranky and my husband is getting pissy.

Which leads me to realize something. I haven't really given a true portrayal of my husband within the pages of my blog. I've glossed right over most of his bad qualities, which is only right. Because he's mine and I get to do that. But maybe he isn't always quite as easygoing and cute as I make him seem. (I think. I really am not sure how he comes across in this blog.)

So, in the interest of truth and journalistic integrity, I'm introducing a new series of posts here on Tuna Girl. It's the My Husband is a Complete Dork series.

My guy was commissioned through the ROTC program at a private college. His college was unique in that it was small and attended by very few women. In fact, my women's college had more men then his coed college had women.

Most of the cadets lived together on one floor. There they could be as macho and chauvinist as they wanted, away from the eyes of the rest of the campus.

One of their more juvenile ideas was the Totem Pole.

The Totem Pole consisted of strips of paper baring each cadet's name tacked on a bulletin board. When one of them had sex, he moved his name to the top of the Totem Pole.

My husband would usually scoff good-naturedly at these sorts of things. He claimed himself too old and too (almost) married to bother with them. But I kept noticing that his name was migrating to the top of the Totem Pole.

Now, it is perfectly possible that his cohorts were moving his name whenever I spent the night, assuming (rightly so) that he was getting lucky. But I had my suspicions.

One night, my husband seemed especially eager to get to the bathroom after we had sex. When he returned I asked him if he had moved his name. "Um, of course not. That's stupid," he said.

"Really. Let's see," was my reply as I dragged him to the bulletin board, where his name was standing fresh and proud at the top.

"Okay." he admitted. "I moved it. So what?"

From then on, I teased him about the Totem Pole.

Those guys took it very seriously. They even forced the guys with fiances and serious girlfriends to separate off into their own Totem Pole.

At some point, someone must have made them take it down. It disappeared and no one would say why. But these sorts of things...man. I can laugh about them now, and I laughed about them then, but I also worried about the type of frat boy mentality that would take something like that so seriously. And we wonder how Tailhook could have happened.

So my husband is far from perfect. He's perfect for me, of course, but there are times when he drives me crazy. As sweet, strong, easygoing, and kind as he can be, he's also a great big dork. I guess that's why we go so well together. Anyway, I thought I'd share that with all of you.