Pre-Marriage Questioning

Pre-dating. When Katie was playing hard-to-get.  

I recently came across an article on the Interwebs with the title 54 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married. (I assumed one of those questions would be, “Do you put an inordinate amount of trust into anonymous articles that you come across on the Internet?”)

I thought back to when Katie and I were dating, and how this article would have most likely inspired my own line of questioning. Mainly:

“54 questions? Who has time for that?!”
“Will this involve a polygraph?”
“How much will this cut into ‘kissing time?’”

…and so forth.

Dating. And time permitting, being adorable.

Since our courtship was before the invention of the Internet, smartphones, Ted Talks, or Robert Mueller, I didn’t have easy access to lists of questions I should be asking this highly attractive, hilarious, and wicked-smart love of my life. For me, when I was dating Katie, the Question List was much shorter.

1. Do you like me?
2. Do you think you could like me forever?
3. How do you feel about eating ice cream every night?
4. Do you consider it a hate crime that Bill Murray doesn’t already have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
5.

That’s about it, I guess.

The Big Day.  

23 brief years later. 

I learned a lot by reading this list of 54 questions, you guys. I’ve been married almost 24 years, and I’ll just say it, I kind of thought I was nailing it. But NO! I am so embarrassed. As I read these questions, I began to realize that after 23 years of marriage – there are still things we have never even asked each other!

I couldn't wait for our next date night, so we could get to the bottom of some of these. "Do you want kids?" I would begin. "How many?" "If it were up to you, when would we start having kids?" Katie would then wrinkle her nose and squint her eyes, like she was giving a lot of thought to my timely questions. Or like she was wondering when I'd started drinking in the afternoon, since the relevancy of these questions is questionable. "Why do we want to marry each other?" "How should I behave when you’re in a bad mood?" "If physical attraction were eliminated, what would be left in our relationship?" ("Ha!" she would answer. "Like we’ll ever have to cross that bridge.")

54 questions would seem like an exhaustive list, right? Wrong. Like, wrong wrong. You should be ashamed of how wrong you are.

Sit down, you adorable Gen-Z’er. Let me tell you the kind of hard-hitting questions you want to ask that flawless young thing sitting across from you right now … peering into your eyes … fully confident that you have never had body odor or blown your nose in the shower.

Wanna know who you are really marrying? Consider these 20 questions that you couldn’t possibly even know needed answering before you get married …

1. Does the Christmas season start on November 1st or the day after Thanksgiving?

2. Will using humor diffuse a situation, or throw gas on the fire?

3. Follow up: Is it more important to be right or to be funny?

4. How do you feel about having a conversation while one of us is sitting on a toilet?

5. What temperature is the thermostat going to be set at?

6. It’s midnight, but there’s a new episode of Brooklyn 99. Do we watch it?

7. The speaker at church is super earnest. I’ve decided to do an impression of him for you. During the meeting. But with an adorable lateral-lisp. How do you respond?

8. There’s precisely one serving of ice cream left in the freezer. Who gets it? (Follow-up question: And how did this happen when the carton was half-full yesterday?)

9. I have a story from when I was single and at a church social function where an older, married woman mistook me for her husband and stuck her hand in my back pocket. I will be telling this story at parties for the rest of our lives. Is this a problem?

10. When I feel overwhelmed with love or gratitude – or when our kids do something amazing – I will get emotional. In public. Will this embarrass you?

11. How do you feel about stints of unemployment or underemployment?

12. How do you feel about putting up decorations for every holiday?

13. I won’t sing in public. But I will sing to you. And those songs will usually be pop songs where I have parodied the lyrics to the point where they are about 85% innuendo. Do you find this amusing?

14. Do you feel lip syncing is superior to karaoke? Correction: Why is lip syncing superior to karaoke?

15. Dinner is almost ready, but I go to the pantry anyway and grab a bag of chips. Is this met with a) eye rolls b) sarcasm or c) death threats?

16. We agreed on a specific price tag for our Christmas presents to each other. I completely ignored it and surprised you with something way out of budget. Again. For the 23rd year in a row. Even though I promised you I wasn’t going to do that this year. How much trouble am I in? Why do I keep doing this? Do promises mean nothing to me?

17. We will most likely see U2 every time they tour. Despite the ridiculous ticket costs. Problem?

18. There will be moments in our life together when I feel inspired to take over the world! To do something amazing! Excited and determined, I will present you with my ideas and plans. After the music dies down and I realize my plans require a lot of work, I will go back to being just me. Will you be able to get excited with me and tell me how wonderful I am when I present my ideas – and then, will you be able to quickly forget them and not throw them in my face when absolutely nothing happens?

19. If neither of us is a doctor, are you still comfortable looking at weird things in unspeakable places and answering the question, “What do you think this is?”

20. How much of our lives is going to be shared on blog posts?

A Moment in Time, Part 2

Katie and I recently celebrated our 20-year anniversary. We were married August 17, 1995. It was a Thursday. 1:00 p.m. Salt Lake City. It was hot, and it was inconvenient for almost everyone. And it was the best day ever in the history of days. Truly. I polled *everyone. (*Katie and myself.)

As part of our celebration, I made a video for Katie – narrowing down 20 years to 4.5 minutes. This was achieved because my brother, Dehn, who is a master with film production, suggested I just select a theme, and whatever footage doesn’t fit with that theme doesn’t get in the video. No matter how cute. That made it easier for me. I chose the theme of dancing/performing. Here it is:

On the night of the 17th, when I got home from work, our kids had set up dinner for Katie and I. They had turned the kitchen into a restaurant. Abbie had prepared the food. Garren and Connor were our waiters. Roxanna, Tanner, Becca and Lucy provided the music. Hillary was the loud drunk at the next table who insisted on wandering over and sampling our food. Especially dessert.

We loved it.

Katie and I had gotten engaged at The Underground, a restaurant in Provo that no longer exists. So the kids called this “restaurant” The Above Ground. They printed menus, with most of the meals being inside jokes. Example: “The Hot Pocket, with a side of Pepto.” (Jim Gaffigan reference.) Garren would say things like, “Are you celebrating anything special this evening? Oh! 20 years?! Well, at The Above Ground, all couples celebrating a 20-year anniversary eat free.”

When Katie and I had been married only a few weeks, both still students at BYU, we were going to bed one late evening when she said, “I can’t wait until we are done with school. We are going to be so wealthy.” Surprised and excited, I said, “We are?!” She said, “Yes, of course. You’re so talented, it’s just inevitable.” She fell asleep, and I stayed up, so happy and flattered in her confidence of our imminent wealth, and plotting all the ways we would spend this abundance. Well ... It’s 20 years later, and I think I can safely say … the joke’s on Katie.

Kind of.

We are not, by any definition, frolicking in piles of cash. (I believe that's officially one of the barometers of wealth, correct?) But when I look at our children and this life we’ve created together. When I look at where we live. When I look at the people who have played such intricate roles in our life and influenced us for good. When I look at all that is still before us. And when I look at Katie and see that she still has that same confidence in me that she did 20 years ago – the same confidence in us – I would absolutely use the word "wealth" and “abundance” to describe this extraordinary ordinary life.