Okay, I think we can all accept that I’m probably never going to get married. I lead a practically monastic lifestyle and I’m anti-social to levels just short of where I’d have to start doing murders. But still, thoughts enter my head from time to time when I see other marriages that make me wonder what it would be like for me. Plus, I gotta find something to put up on this damned website, right? So this here is a message to my Future Wife. You probably don’t exist, but this guide still does: What to expect if you marry PDR.

Okay, Future Wife, somehow you’ve found yourself in a position where you think marrying PDR is a good idea. Probably a disease wiped out most of the dudes on Earth or whatever. Whatever the cause, you have somehow seen past all the annoying neuroses, childish thoughts, and general stupidity that surround PDR and you mistakenly think he’s an okay guy beneath it all. Well, I’ll not argue that right now (there’ll be time after the honeymoon), but I will offer some other advice that you can use.

PDR don’t wedding. I don’t want a big wedding. I really don’t. I have mentioned this previously on the site and I still stand buy it. If you want a marriage with PDR, he’s okay with that. If you want a wedding with PDR, he is less okay with that! There’s probably some leeway in here, I admit. I’m willing to compromise to an extent since, it is my understanding, some people are close with their families and would want them involved, but that’s about as far as I can go. The ideal situation for me would be, us, the marryer person, and I think we need a witness or something? Well, okay that’s not the totally ideal one, it’s just realistically ideal. The totally ideal one would involve wizards that give us powers so that we can become a crimefighting superhero couple. But the odds of that are so ridiculous that they’re slightly more unlikely than me getting married to begin with.

Also, another tradition I’m going to go against: Don’t take my last name. I assume you’ve got a last name, Future Wife. Unless there is something tangibly wrong with yours, why would you want to go and change it after decades of living with it? And if there is something wrong with it, you had decades where you could have changed it without getting me involved. And think about me, too. I don’t want that. I don’t want to have to learn a new name for some person I apparently like enough to marry. Keep it simple. The bottom line is this: I’m not conquering some undiscovered land here, Future Wife, I’m making allies with an already peopled land. Do you get it Future Wife? Do you understand metaphor Future Wife? I do hope I won’t have to always resort to simile for you. That would be frightfully boorish.

While we’re on the topic of nomenclature, Future Wife, please don’t refer to me as “hubby” either in conversation with me or when talking to other people. For some reason it is a term that doesn’t sit well with me. I can tolerate being called most things. If no variation on my name suits the situation, there’s a million other things that I’d accept first. The usual pet names like “Dear”, “Sweetie”, “Your Holiness”, “Asshole”, “Fuckhead”, “Dickless”, “Hey Idiot”, “You Grandmafuckingcockstrangler”, “I HATE YOU AND IF YOU DIED IN A FIRE WITH A MILLION BABIES AND GOD OFFERED ME THE CHANCE TO TURN BACK TIME AND PREVENT THE FIRE I STILL WOULDN’T” or “Honey” are all good. “Hubby” is just in this weird zone of vagueness and formality. I like to think of the husband role as being secondary to us being friends, Future Wife. So address me as a friend instead of as a husband. Or something. Anyway, I don’t like it.

Switching gears entirely: I’m nocturnal. Granted, at the moment I’ve got an excuse that I’m that way for work, but I really can’t see myself ever wanting to fully make the transition back to being a full-time diurnal person. I no longer get the headaches I got for years during the times when I was in school or worked days. I think this is because I’m really supposed to be a night person. Don’t worry, though, Future Wife, I’ll still have time for you. I assume you’ll work during the days during the week, so I can sleep while you’re at work and have dinner ready when you get home. And on weekends you’ll have nice morning hours free from my odious presence until I wake up in the afternoon and we can sup on sunlit verandas then dance the night away to our heart’s content*. In many ways my being nocturnal is way better for us, Future Wife. So don’t try to change this. It’s what is right.

(* I will not actually dance the night away)

Eventually we’ll probably have kids, Future Wife. That seems to be what married couples feel like they have to do, even though if they really thought about it they’d realize “hey, maybe let’s don’t do that” but whatever, we probably will. Such is the nature of hypothetical scenarios. Here’s the thing: If I were a single parent my kids would not be raised to celebrate Christmas. This, of course, makes me the villain in most movies. I know, but this is who I am. But that’s irrelevant anyway! You, Future Wife, assuming you’re not stupid enough to die and leave me alone with Future Child, are going to be there too, and I think it is very likely that (unless you’re both non-Christian and non-secular in which case how did we get this far without me somehow insulting your religion?) you probably do the whole Christmas thing, so I will acquiesce to you. I will try to instill this one day with a level of joy I don’t think it can really contain at the detriment of joy that could be found on other days if you want me to. Just don’t expect me to be enthusiastic about it. I reserve the right to complain about every dumb holiday decoration, every stupid holiday obligation, and especially any Christmas song, and you don’t get to be surprised or hurt. Because I laid this down early and plainly. Got it? And if you die, I’m stealing Christmas from that kid, you better believe it! Hahahahahaha!

Ahem. Finally, and perhaps most important: No racist hate crimes. All hate crimes that we commit as a married couple shall be motivated by class. This is non-negotiable.

Sure, we all know about how the Dark Lord Char’Nagh visits us at New Years Eve now, but imagine how weird that must have been the first time it happened. Here’s a poem about it.

Dark Lord Char’nagh came to mark the year’s end,
his inky, wriggling form eclipsed the sun.
No one knew what his coming did portend,
for this was his first time on Earth: year one.
The humans down below grow quite afraid
at this strange monster writhing o’er their town.
“We must destroy this thing” the wisemen said,
the soldiers made their plans to bring it down.
But none could throw their rocks or spears so high
to reach the giant thing they wanted dead.
They thought their failure meant that they would die,
but Char’Nagh only gave them fleas instead.
Dark Lord Char’Nagh is not something to fear,
just the terror that comes with a new year.

So anyway, 2011 is over. Wasn’t the worst year. Now we’re starting 2012, which is, of course, the end of the world. Lookin’ forward to that!

Actually I thought the whole 2012 end of the world thing was cooler back in, like, 2002. It’s kinda played out now. But I honestly don’t think I could start the year without referencing it here. So I did. That is all.

Hey! I’m in New York, but I’ve used technology to update my website for me so I don’t miss the comics update. It’s Halloween, but these comics have nothing to do with that.

SecGov Robots:

So that ends this little epilogue with the beekeepers. I intend to get back to that little plotline in the future, but we’ve an unrelated story starting next week.

Phone Guys:

So thus begins the second batch of Phone Guys comics. Personally I think that this batch has about five percent fewer nonsensical pointless strips than last year’s did. If we keep up that trend we could one day get it down to only eighty-five percent pointlessness!

So the newspaper that has just gone out includes this article about some satellite that is coming acrashin’ to Earth soon, and there is a chance it will hit Canada (they say probably an ocean, but maybe Canada). If that thing hits me I demand some sort of holiday in my honor. A holiday that involves people throwing soft plastic toy satellites at one another.

That’s all. I just like my wishes to be known ahead of time.

For the record, cleaning up space junk in orbit has been on my list of things to do if I ever get Superman powers for years. So keep that in mind whoever hands out Superman powers.

10) It would benefit the economy. Creating jobs is a popular sentiment. And PDR’s Butler is a job.
9) Since I do not feel I am myself better than servants, we would have a strong bond of equality between us. This means the butler would enjoy serving me as much as I enjoy being served.
8) It would be educational. I would learn more about butlers. And that would benefit everyone, probably.
7) It would expand my horizons. The butler could introduce me to new kinds of cookies that he knows that I’ve never tried.
6) If I had a butler, people would think I am better off than I actually am and that would lead them to treat me as if I were a rich dude. That would make it much easier for me to become rich.
5) He would be able to give me more reasons to have a butler. Butlers know all about reasons to have butlers.
4) Butlers have connections. A butler could hook me up with a chauffeur and a chef and a maid and so on.
3) I could talk to him about Brontosaurs. Butlers love that!
2) It would prevent terrorists from saying I don’t have a butler. We’re supposed to be opposing the terrorists right?
1) I’m incompetent at most tasks. If I had a butler to do these tasks, he would do those tasks better than I do and therefore the world would be a better place.

So, if any governments want to pitch in and pay for someone to be my butler, let me know.

In other news, I found the note I left for myself that March 25th is International Robot Day according to me. I totally forgot to celebrate it this year. This will not happen again.