Week 31: Make Good on Old Bets

I like to think I’m a man(-child) of my word.  If you ask me to do something, you can be assured I will get it done.  I don’t like letting people down.  I’m sure that someone wise once said that all we have as men is our word and, you know, the rest is total doo-doo after that.  Actually, let’s just make it official:

“All we have as men is our word and, you know, the rest is total doo-doo after that.”

— George Washington

Much better.  But for all of my proselytizing, I can’t ignore the fact that I have dropped the ball on occasion.

Some time ago, Q and I went on a cruise and discovered that we absolutely adore shuffleboard.  It’s difficult to have privacy anywhere other than your tiny closet of a room on a cruise ship that holds two thousand passengers alone, so we were pleasantly surprised to find the shuffleboard court completely abandoned.  I think all the people who enjoy cruise ship shuffleboard have since left this earth, and the newer generations have chosen livelier leisure activities instead.  Their loss.

As we played game after game throughout the week, we decided a friendly wager might spice things up.  A monetary bet didn’t make much sense between boyfriend and girlfriend, so instead we decided on something cruise ship themed – an activity we like to call the “Reverse Titanic.”

Remember that scene in the movie where Leonardo DiCaprio sketches a nude Kate Winslet while she lies provocatively on a couch?  In our version, the winner of the bet strikes a pose fully clothed, while the loser stands before an easel and paints, naked as the day he or she was born.

So, yeah, I lost.  We made this bet four years ago, and I’ve been putting off fulfilling its terms ever since.  So at the start of this year, when I began ticking off box after box on my manly checklist, I knew it would only be a matter of time before this particular transgression came to call.  As our first president probably said at one time or another, we only have our word, and I couldn’t possibly call myself a true man without making good on this bet.

Last night, Q lay down on the sofa with our guinea pig on her lap, while I stripped down to my skivvies, set up my watercolors, and blasted some Celine Dion on the stereo.  It’s maybe the least erotic thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I like to think that I wasn’t just making good on our bet, but also commenting on gender inequalities promoted by popular culture in an ironic way.  That, and by tagging this post “Peter Andre Naked,” I hope to get a lot of page views from British fans who think they’ve stumbled upon a NSFW image of their favorite pop star.

I also love that the only picture of Q on this blog is a watercolor and pencil drawing by someone with little artistic skills.

After losing one bet to my wife in such spectacular fashion, do you think I would have learned my lesson and made less complex bets in the future?  I don’t need to answer that rhetorical question as you can clearly see there are more paragraphs below.

Three summers ago, Q went away to grad school and we decided to bet on who could work out more often over the course of a month.  We kept track on a shared Google Doc, and as you might have gathered from reading my entry on Survival Racing, visiting the gym regularly is about as appealing to me as weekly dentist appointments.

If Q lost the bet, she would have made me a children’s book detailing the most memorable moments of my life thus far.  If I lost, I would have to make a video of the three most badass things she’s ever done.  With only a week’s time, I was only able to commemorate one badass thing, but I think it more than fulfills the terms of our bet.

For your viewing pleasure: a video interpretation of that one time Q chased down three teenage hooligans while wearing a pink tankini, flip flops, and an air cast.

ON THE MAN SCALE:

I’m not proud of the fact that entire years have passed before I finally made good on these bets.  Avoiding the terms of the bet we made was a childish thing to do, and I unfairly thought I could put it off indefinitely because Q is my wife.  I feel a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that I have fulfilled my duties.  And it had the added bonus of forever ruining Celine Dion for me!  3.60.