People always talk about what a complicate mess getting married is. What they actually mean is that the marriage ceremony paraphernalia, all those things that people go through to get a perfect wedding - which often means impress as many friends as possible, and make people they dislike jealous - carry with it the need for an obsessive attention to detail, a forsaking of your life usually attained only by dervishes, anchorets and Massively Multiplayer Online Games addicts.
Getting married is actually pretty simple. You show up, you sign a couple of papers which you probably perused with less care than you review a monthly credit card statement, get your witnesses to sign, and prestó! Single life is over.
In an ideal world, getting divorced would be just as simple (”I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee”, anyone?): you simply outline the conditions for termination up front when signing the contract … er… getting married, and when the time comes you simply notify the other party. If the distribution of wealth is not to the agreement of one of the partners then you bring in arbitration, otherwise it’s over.
Getting a divorce, now, was complicated. To be honest I half expected scenes right out of the War of the Roses, but the stars just weren’t in place: we didn’t have that much china, Hellen doesn’t cook or socialize much, I don’t have an expensive sports car that looks just taken out of its Matchbox package, our staircases aren’t that big and, well, I’m not insane. When Hellen announced she was moving out, I just told her to take whatever she wanted from the common assets and we’d square the distribution of wealth after.
I did not expect the legal complications that costarrican bureaucracy would spawn, like when the judge’s office bounced the divorce papers because they were printed on legal paper instead of on letter sheets. OK, nice to follow protocol and all, but they took three bloody months to realize that this difference was there. When I met with Hellen once more to sign the papers again I half-expected that this would be the first of many times I would have to see her to correct tiny legalese details, when what I actually wanted was just to get her out of my life as soon as possible.
Throughout the process I kept hearing Danny DeVito’s words: a civilized divorce is a contradiction of terms.
Hellen actually behaved more like a reasonable person during the process than she did through most of our marriage, which surprised me at first, until I realized that as Dan suggested, she was probably only playing some sort of mind game by moving out without knowing who she was playing with, while I take the lying and cheating seriously.
It may also have had to do with the fact that the divorce was an effortless process for her: I retained an attorney, got him to draft papers, used my bike messenger to shuttle things around, and all she had to do was find a couple of thugs to help her move the furniture and household items she was taking, go to the bank to cash my checks, and sign the divorce papers. When at last my attorney called one day to inform me that the planets had aligned, the gods smiled, Cthulhu risen and the judge approved my divorce, I called her and asked she never contact me again.
Easier said than done.
It was pretty quiet for the first couple of weeks, which was probably the time it took her to realize I had blocked her from my AIM and Yahoo accounts. Then she started calling, and not recognizing one of her office’s PBX numbers, I picked up. Every time I asked her to not call me again unless the judge had screwed up and we had to sign something else in order for me to finally attain my release.
Eventually I learned to recognize the office numbers and just started pressing Ignore every time one popped up.
Why this rant? Because the last time it happened I actually had fun.
On October 1st I’m at the beach with Viorica, taking a long overdue vacation. After spending the day getting horribly sunburnt at the beach but enjoying myself like few times in recent memory, we watched a magnificent sunset before heading back to our room to rest. Being the telecom addicts that we are, we took our cell phones out of the safety deposit box. Vero called her twin sister, Angi, and I just layed on the bet and let my mind wander.
A little tune snapped me back to reality. Picking up the phone, I cursed through my teeth. Vero looked at me sharply, wondering what prompted the expletives, so I showed her the phone.
Hellen
Calling…
Just as I was going to press the Ignore button once again, she warbles something in Rodian to Angi, hangs up her phone, snatches my v70 and answers with a Jessica Rabbit-like voice.
“Hello?” (pause) “Yes, this is the number.” Another pause. “Yes, Ricardo….” Turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Give me a moment, let me see where he is…”
She puts the cellphone down, wrinkles her nose at me and waits.
“Still there?”, she finally returns. “Ricardo is taking a shower, can I take a message? … Hello? … Hello?”
Turning to me, she shrugs. “I think she hung up.”
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