I have been married for well over 3 months now, and I have therefore totally got this marriage thing nailed down.

And while that last statement is almost complete and utter bullshit, i will say that the living is fairly  easy for newlyweds.  I mean, people don't even really take your marriage seriously yet.  Conversations with strangers concerning my recent nuptials invariably go like this.  every time.

Stranger: Oh, you're married . . .  how long have you been married for?
Me:  A little over 3 months now.

Stranger: (Voice octave increases to "talking to a newborn or puppy" level) OH!!! A newlywed!!!!!
Me: (no vocal change).  Yup.
Stranger: (As if still playing with said imaginary puppy).  Well now, (condescension creeping in) you must still be enjoying yourselves. Honeymoon? Kids soon?  Favorite position?

It gets progressively more personal and inappropriate.  The underlying message, however, remains the same.  And that is this:

If you have only been married for a short while, nobody respects that union yet, because *anyone* can stay together that long.  Even them.  And therefore, most people don't see any accomplishment connected to the experience of being married for a short while.  Getting married = accomplishment.  Staying married for awhile = accomplishment.   But that middle period is considered a gimme.

This, of course, totally misses the point of marriage.  The goal is not to survive each other, but rather to enjoy life more as the result of finding someone to share it with.

With a little over 8 months to go til my first anniversary, the wife and i have only one real issue threatening our domestic bliss.  And that issue revolves completely around the chocolate mint wedding cake currently occupying over a quarter of our freezer space.

This cake filling my freezer, as i'm sure all of my female readers immediately knew, is the top portion of our wedding cake.  A wedding cake we purchased about a mile and a half from our house.   The style and flavor of our wedding cake was picked specifically because it reflected one of their signature cakes (which we get on our birthdays).   A cake that we picked because , you can buy a comparable (*cough cough* identical *cough cough*) cake at your convenience during normal business hours--anytime.

But alas, we have a 3 month old version of said deliciousness freezer-burning away its time in our house for the next 8 months.

I don't get this particular wedding tradition.  To be specific, i'm speaking of the tradition of keeping the top layer of one's wedding cake for consumption upon the one year anniversary of marriage.

Mmmmmmmmm . . . nothing says loving like the stale sugar memories of ancient frosting and a 45% chance of love related food-poisoning.

My brother dodged this particular wedding bullet because his friends went late night skinny dipping post wedding, and craved more sustenance after pulling themselves out of the icy atlantic.  I was in full support (minus a broken back and walking cane) of the absolute demolition of their cake top in the name of drunken love hunger.   I would say that the cake was gone before the last person out of the ocean was dry.

and all i can think of now is the amount of freezer space that was saved in that one beautiful moment.

back to me.

That cake is a nuisance. SO much so that my sneaky sneak of a wife has already wondered aloud if i keep eating the freezer cake and replacing it with new ones from the store.  She would really have no way of knowing.  Til next May, when she bites into a defrosted cake that doesn't taste remarkably awful.  Then she'd suspect.  I would probably tell some yarn about how our love is a preservative that time cannot penetrate.  Then she'd give me the "youreawfulsweetandawefullyfullofshit" look (a classic), and i would fess up.

But more to the point.  Isn't this the stupidest tradition of all time.  I mean, how is this romantic.  or remotely connected to romantic.  Spoiling food is not a joke.  (unless you put some green bread under a friends pillow--then it is a joke).  And all food preserving decisions this year now revolve around this f'n wedding cake.

ME: "Should we freeze the yummy leftover soup so that we have it for the fall?"

WIFE: "wellllllllll, we could freeze a little bit of it . . . but we will have to make room for it around the cake."

F THE CAKE!

I guess i just fail to see the bonding element of sharing old cake - even a cake that unarguably comes from an amazing occasion.  And, since i married a woman who hates clutter, it seems odd to me that she has taken such a firm and unwavering stance regarding that cake staying put (the point has been made extremely clear.)  Maybe the bonding element (besides the frosting) comes from a couple negotiating having a crammed and cramped full freezer for a full year together.

Anyway you slice it (CAKE PUN!), what you have here is marital discord.  Perhaps my wife is bound by tradition over and about rational and health related thought.
Perhaps I, in my dismissiveness of this "milestone",  fall victim to a tiny bit of my own "anyone can stay married a year" (not true btw) bias.

This is our current marital dilemma.  Wife says, "No way José!"

I say, "let them eat cake."