Cheap dating

Seasoned husbands know that dating doesn’t end once you’re married. It’s true: men are required by federal law to take their wives out on dates long after the “I dos” are done. It’s all there in the fine print on the back of your marriage license, or so my wife tells me.

There’s no use in trying to weasel out of it. In my experience, shirking your husbandly dating duties may result in a condition known as “Wife is Discontent and over 40” or simply WD-40.

WD-40 often manifests itself in the form of expensive shopping excursions and excruciatingly painful credit card bills. It’s one of those situations where, even if a guy wins, he loses.

At our house, it generally boils down to a compromise. My wife wants to go out on a date, and I want to get by for cheap. So, we end up going on cheap dates.

Take what happened recently as an example. We had just settled down in front of the tube, anticipating a quiet evening of mind-numbing televised mediocrity.

“What’ll it be?” I asked my wife as I clicked through the channels. “A rerun of a pointless game show or having our emotions blatantly manipulated by another docudrama?”

“Oh, joy,” she yawned. “Be still my beating heart.”

“Yeah, I know, but what can we do? There isn’t much for entertainment out here in the boonies.”

She flashed a sly grin. “I’m glad you brought that up. This newspaper ad says they’re having Karaoke Night at the pub. Want to go in for a while and maybe sing along? But, if you want to just sit at home again, that’s OK. I was thinking about going shopping tomorrow, anyway.”

Yikes. She had just displayed some of the early symptoms of WD-40.

“Hold on just a minute; let me see that ad. Look, it says ‘No cover, no minimum.’ I’m there.”

And so, we motored to the pub for Karaoke Night. You must understand that, although I like music, I learned at an early age that I have absolutely no ability to produce it. I’m one of those musically-impaired people who couldn’t carry a tune even if you bolted a handle onto it. I had to lip sync my way through numerous grade school Christmas programs and choirs to hide this tragic disability.

The tavern had a fair-sized crowd by the time we arrived. As we walked in, I could clearly discern the refrain of an old Hank Williams tune.

I thought, “They must be playing the jukebox instead of doing karaoke. Figures. You can’t expect that sort of thing to go over very well in a little farming community like this.”

Imagine my astonishment, then, when we sat down and I saw the songster belting out “Your Cheatin’ Heart” wasn’t Hank but a local carpenter named Doug.

“OK,” I thought, “So Doug has a surprising amount of talent. I bet it’ll be all downhill from here.”

I was wrong. A young lady next stood up and presented a very nice rendition of a popular country tune. There followed a steady stream of local performers, most of whom you would never suspect of owning such a melodious set of pipes.

I was beginning to think there was a gizmo in the karaoke machine that could make even the most noisome singing voice, such as mine, sound like a nightingale. As if she were reading my mind, my wife nudged me and said, “Why don’t you pick out a song and give it a whirl?”

I had just started to peruse the song list when a young woman took the mic and totally mutilated a popular love ballad. Next came a young man who, like me, was congenitally tone-deaf. It soon became apparent that there were many untalented singers interspersed among the talented.

But I also noticed something else: The lousy performers got just as much applause as the outstanding vocalists, and I gradually realized that this event was about more than just music. It was also a way for members of the local community to reconnect.

I imagine this same type of gathering has occurred countless times over the millennia. The night air, the dim lighting, the primal thump of drums. Nothing much has changed except that karaoke machines have really cool speakers.

The evening turned out to be one of our best cheap dates ever. Not only did I successfully stave off an impending bout of WD-40, but I also made some money.

That’s because, on our way home, my wife gave me $10 to stop singing along with the radio.

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar.com.