Maybe the Mormons Are Right?

Did I get your attention? I became intrigued while riding the train to work late one morning last week. My car decided to quit transmitting – in other words, my transmission quit – and for the first time in thirty-one years, I had to call for a tow truck. After dropping it off at the garage, I rented a car and drove over to the Metro station. Rather than ride with my usual commuters at 7:45 am, I was now in a train filled with tourists at 10:15 am.

While I appreciate all that the tourists do for our economy, I will never appreciate what these morons from the Midwest do in our trains and on our escalators. One family actually walked through the emergency doors between cars, while the train was moving. This was the same group of fat asses who blocked the escalator rather than stand to the right. When the train arrived, they pushed past a blind woman to get on that car they eventually vacated.

The funniest thing is watching them choose a seat. They never sit next to anyone who isn’t white. I guess there are no Asians, Hispanics or Black people in Idaho or wherever they eat three-bean salad the other fifty weeks out of the year. Whenever one sits next to me, I have to stop myself from pulling out my latest copy of Yeshiva Hotties, opening it to the center-fold, and saying in my most fey voice, “Look at the payot on that hunk of kosher salami!” (My Jewish friends will notice my mixed metaphor – the rest of you can look up payot.)

I have decided to take my next vacation in Idaho and be obnoxious and annoying in all their public places next summer. No one will notice.

Where was I? Oh yes, the tourists on the train.

So there I was, trying to read my paper and hearing, not in their inside train voices, “Which stop are we?” “How many stops is that?”  “Why is that man’s skin so dark?”

I looked up and noticed a family standing in front of me (they weren't loud and obnoxious). Unlike most tourist families, this one looked happy. I have mentioned how my friend Chris would always say, “Most divorces happen after a family vacation.” The family was also unusual, consisting of one man, five children and obviously, two wives.

They were not one of your Jeffers compound families. They weren’t wearing Little House on the Prairie clothes and saying "thou" this and "thine" that. The adults were wearing walking shorts and polo shirts, and the kids were dressed like any other American kids. Even more surprising was how attractive they were. He had a shaved head and a beefy football player build, and his youngest child was in his baby backpack (what are those called?). In the right wardrobe, he would be a hit at the Eagle on any given Saturday night. The wives were quite hot and looked similar. I assumed the first wife was the one pushing the more expensive carriage. Both were blonde and looked to be about the same age.

Seeing this family dynamic got me thinking. Why are we so down on polygamy? What mother doesn’t need a little help around the house, and what tired mother just doesn’t want to swing her heels behind her ears some nights and wishes her husband would fulfill his needs in the other bedroom for a change? These guys never have affairs, they just bring home another wife, and when they do, wives one and two say, “I wonder if she does windows?”

Unfortunately, polygamy gets a bad rap in the Bible, but if it hadn’t been for polygamy, there would be no Jews, Muslims or Christians.

In the Bible, Abraham sent his second wife, Hagar, and his son, Ishmael, into the dessert at the urging of his first wife, Sarah. Ironically, Sarah arranged the marriage in the hopes of Hagar giving birth. Abraham was the first husband to say, “I’m so confused; just tell me what you want?”

A few decades later, one of Abraham’s descendants was quoted as saying, “Where did all those fucking Arabs come from?” Blame Sarah.

Jacob married Leah thinking she was Rachel, which is the reason brides must lift their veils and reveal their faces before the groom makes his vow … or vomits. Jacob eventually married Rachel then he treated their son, Joseph, better than the others. His other sons sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Then the rest of the family went there, had too many kids, became slaves, then left, became Jews and banned polygamy, eating pork, wearing cotton/poly blends, and other fun things.

Moses led them to the promised land and died before getting onto the tour bus. Then, there were kings and queens, and one of David’s descendants became a carpenter, tore his tunic on the way to synagogue one day and found a tailor, who made him a beautiful blue and white tunic in a few hours, so they opened a store and called it Lord & Tailor.

Had Abraham not married his second wife, we would all be Pharoists today, and cemeteries would be filled with miniature pyramids.

Back to the polygamist family. While I find all those compounds and cults disturbing and disgusting with their child brides and treatment of women, there is another way to look at polygamy.

In the gay world, poly-amorous relationships have existed for a long time. There are couples who bring in a third to add some sizzle, and somehow they make it work. Of course, rarely are there children involved, and the dynamic of three people of the same sex is much different than Jack, Janet and Chrissy sharing an apartment they rent from the Ropers.

Maybe, I have been going about this all wrong all these years. While I have resigned myself to being single to the end, mostly due to the fact that I prefer my own company to that of others, would it make more sense for me to seek a couple instead?

I could go off on my own and not worry about either of them being left out or alone. If I got bored with one, I could hang around the other one. And if I just wasn’t in the mood, I could send one into the other’s bedroom.

There is one problem. I, being a number eleven and, therefore, an alpha, would need to find two betas that have managed to stay together. I could seek out two separate betas and create my own polygamous hell, but that would require more work than seeking out one beta, and we all know how good I am at that.

Oh hell. Screw the whole thing. Observing one happy polygamous triple doesn’t make it the brightest idea. And with my luck, one of my descendants will start his own religion and cause tensions in the Middle West.

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