Getting personal

Over the years, now and then, I've contributed a handful of first-person columns for the features pages. Each one seemed like a good idea at the time. Among the hard-hitting topics I have tackled:

How to travel like a Dad.

Halloween horrors in Dallas.

A newcomers' guide to the Dallas-Fort Worth area (written before the widespread use of GPS, but possibly still valid.)

Probably the one that got the most reaction ran on New Year's Eve 2002. Apparently, a lot of married couples feel this way. I'm reprinting it below.






From The Dallas Morning News, Dec. 31. 2002

I vow to love, honor and be your New Year's date

New Year's Eve is a special night, one that truly makes me

appreciate my family - in particular, my loving wife.



Oh, sure, it's a moment to reflect on our many blessings, celebrate

another year together as a couple, blah blah blah. But what I'm

really grateful for is this: Thanks to her, I don't have to find a

date for New Year's Eve.



My wife and I often say that we stay together out of fear of having

to date again. This is, of course, an exaggeration. We also stay

together so we can blame someone else for not having done the

dishes.



But fear of dating - that is the biggie. Granted, some people

equate marriage to being stuck in a rut ... a deep, deep, rut ... a

deep, deep, endless rut that only death can release you from ...

but my contacts with single people only reinforce my thinking that

I've got it good. Or at least, better than they do.



For example, one twentysomething relative of mine recently met a

man in a restaurant and accepted his offer for a date. On the

appointed day, he picked her up and began to drive around town. His

destination? The doctor's office. His explanation for taking her

there? He had a problem with one of his testicles.



Sitting in the waiting room, he asked, "Is the date going OK?" She

replied, "No, I would have to say this is not going well at all."



Perhaps it is genetic. Her sister once had a series of dates with

descriptions such as "The Guy Who Threw Up on My Shoes," "The Guy

Who Drooled," and "The Guy With Terrible Gum Disease Who Wanted to

Kiss Me." It is a love life that could be easily converted into a

miniseries on the Sci-Fi Network.



As a teen, I once had my own string of dates that ended in police

intervention. But I still would rather face the embarrassment of

being frisked in public again (frisked! for loitering!) than face

the pressure of figuring out where to go and whom to go with on New

Year's Eve.



I am not sure I have ever had satisfactory answers to those two

questions. As a youth, I would hear about New Year's Eve parties,

but in an amazing series of coincidences, almost everyone I asked

out had to wash her hair or tend to an ailing aunt that night.



The only regular companionship I recall was Dick Clark. Good old

Mr. Clark. He always seemed to be in the middle of a big party,

surrounded by the sounds of happy revelry. I always seemed to be

alone in my parents' living room, surrounded by the sounds of

people snoring.



With memories like that, is it any wonder why I've spent the last

dozen or so years volunteering to work on the holiday?



Work does not beckon this year. Luckily, I have two additional

defenses against having to make New Year's Eve plans: my daughters.

Children do to your social life what Agent Orange does to plant

life. The toddler even poses similar toxic disposal problems with

her byproducts.



In theory, I suppose I could hunt down a sitter, take out a second

mortgage so I could pay her, don my "stylish and new" black jacket

(purchased circa 1996) and drag my wife somewhere to hear other

people our age say, "Boy, I sure can't stay up the way I used to in

... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."



But my wife is smarter than that. She'll be happy to stay home with

me, the sleeping girls and Dick Clark. If we stay awake long

enough, we'll toast 2003 with some hot chocolate, assuming we have

some clean mugs to stir it in.



We'll be stuck in a rut, but it's a comfy rut. And, she's not that

likely to throw up on me.



Happy New Year, dear. You're the best.