12 Reasons to Stay Married After Peak Oil and Climate Change

I wrote this a while back, when someone on a list I'm on asked about reasons to stay together. And no, I don't believe in purple haired mutants ;-).

1. Gives you something sustainable to do during those rollingblackouts (sex and fighting would probably both fit the bill, actually.)

2. When energy costs bring a romantic evening out's price up towardsa week's salary, you'll have someone to stay home with.

3. Purple haired mutants are poor conversationalists, rarely bring flowers and often have hygeine problems. Some spouses have the samedifficulties, but you'll be used to them by then, and said spousesrarely eat human flesh.

4. Partners will, out of love, often pretend interest in things like the rate of oil extraction in the Ghawar and the carbon impact of LEDs vs. Compact Flourescents when others begin yawning and wander off.

5. Romantic evenings with spouse may already consist of offering to be the one to cook dinner *and* do the dishes.

6. Newly met potential partners are often turned off by birth control discussions that require home vasectomies or slaughtering a pig tomake condoms.

7. If marriage/partnership produces children, both partners may reasonably blame all homesteading errors and failures on said children, either directly "No, Johnny must have left the gate openfor the cows;" indirectly "Yes, I know I was supposed to weed thegarden but the baby has been crying and I haven't slept and...;" or abstractly "Yes, I know I screwed up and let the tomatoes rot, but parenthood has rotted out my remaining brains, and I can't be held accountable."

8. Huddling together for warmth with a damp spouse who has just come
out of the barn is marginally more pleasant than huddling with adamp dog who has just come from the same place. Usually.

9. No one but your spouse will ever get you to sell/burn/compost your precious collection of 19th century glassware/first edition\nCowboy novels/crackers in the shape of 70s hair bands, no matter how desperately you need the money/heat/soil fertility.

10. When your unbearable sister in law and her three obnoxious children move in because of the crisis, the only person who will put up with them is the person who knows that if he/she doesn't, his/her demanding, drunken parents will be out on their behinds. Moreover, the absence of tv can be much compensated for by lengthy discussions of whose relatives are more horrifying.

11. Spouses/partners may come to find your true hair color/hairylegs/face/back/chronic allergic snoring/tendency towardssimultaneous wrinkles and zits endearing after you can no longer locate or afford products intended to conceal them. One hopes.

12. Once the peak comes, you know that you'll have each otherforever, though thick and thin, good times and bad, in the great exigencies of life. After all, divorce is too expensive and you are conserving bullets.

Sharon