It used to be that people got married and  stayed married for all of their lives. They had children and grandchildren and pretty much lived in the same house or town for most of their lives. Recently I have become very clear on one point. No one does this anymore.  Or at least no one I know.People seem to do all sorts of different things these days. Married people stay together for the “sake of their children” never thinking a marriage without love is a bad example to set for the kids. Single people have affairs with married people and forget about the fact they will never have a real life if they keep this up. Married people stay married because they don’t want to split up all their loot and live separate lives: insisting this is just like being divorced. Married men think it is just fine to come on to single women as having a relationship with a married guy is a good thing? No one is doing what we thought we would do when we were kids and no one seems particularly happy about it.

It was simple back then. We grew up thinking we would fall in love, get married, have kids and then grand kids and then die happily surrounded by our family. We never thought about recession, AIDS, health care, Viagra, the economy, flu shots, the economy, our pets, hybrid cars, bottled water, additives in food, running out of gas/oil/ coal/flu shots/tamiflu/canned food/milk/sleeping bags/blah blah blah.We thought about how much candy we would get on Halloween and whether or not the teacher would give us really hard homework that night. We thought about the Good Humor man coming down the road in his truck and how much money we had saved up to buy ice cream. I had a toy cash register with a tiny handle that you pulled down each time you added money to it. Once you had saved ten dollars the cash drawer opened up and the machine made a “cha ching” noise. I loved this cash register! Wish I still had it. It taught me the fun of saving and the reward of a job well done.

I think it is really dumb to get married and fool around. I think if you are married you shouldn’t try to hit on single people. Perhaps you should stick to other married people. If you are single you should refuse to date married people. If all the women in this world refused to get involved with married guys there would be a lot less heartache in the world.

All right. This is really preachy. I can’t help it. It is Labor Day weekend and a new year is about to begin.