Today's Word is "Inured"

Inured

Of the many reasons the Captain does not want children, one of the more highly ranked ones is that I very much appreciate and like my current lifestyle.

I go home and the only noise I hear is the security alarm go off notifying me I opened the door. I then type in my little code and the system is de-armed. After that....silence.

Beautiful, wonderful silence.

From that point on the only noises I hear are the noises I make. Typing on the keyboard. Opening and closing doors. The uncorking of a wine bottle. The ruffling of paper work. It is a calm and serene bachelor pad and only unless I through on some Beastie Boys or Cypress Hill is that serenity PURPOSELY disturbed.

Now the problem is that if you are over 30 and have never had a child, you start to take this calm, serenity for granted. You don't appreciate the order and clock-like regularity and stability of your life. That is until of course you visit fools that have decided to have children and are starkly reminded just how good you got it.

My girlfriend and I visited two poor souls that were friends of mine last night. We hopped on the motorcycle, took advantage of the near 70 degree day and with some spare time in our schedule, decided to drop in on this married couple. Upon entering the house all seemed in order until one of the children decided to come down stairs and visit with us. She was about a 2 year old child and while her parents and I tried to have an adult conversation the child then started screaming and yelling and making noise. Now the child was not upset or angry or crying, she was actually quite ecstatic to see new people. So this was jovial yelling and screaming, but none the less, still yelling and screaming.

I thought that after a certain amount of time the kid would stop, but it didn't. Certainly, I thought, my friends would intervene and take the child away and put her in the garage or the basement or something. But they didn't. It went on and on and on, to the point that I soon realized my friend who I was talking to did not show signs of this even affecting her. She could continue on the conversation without even skipping a beat, no matter how loud or piercing the screeches were from her little child. Once I realized this I couldn't really believe these screeches were not affecting her, which behooved me to interrupt our conversation and sincerely ask her;

"Wait, wait, wait. Doesn't this bother you?"

To which she responded, "What?"

I said, "The screaming? Doesn't this affect you? Why haven't you put the kid in another room or something?"

"Well she had a long nap and has a lot of energy."

Which didn't of course answer my original question and made me realize what had happened.

My friend and her husband had become "inured" to the noise. They had become "inured" to the children. No matter how loud, nor how outlandish the behavior of the child, my friends had grown accustomed to it and it no longer fazed them. And it was scary because what had happened was really nothing short of brainwashing.

For example, I had a buddy once whose girlfriend was a very attractive girl. He was an honorable and caring man, but perhaps too caring. He was one of those guys who still believed in chivalry and taking care of the women and being the knight in shining armor, blah blah blah. In other words he was a sensitive 90's man. Sure enough his "girlfriend" who didn't really want to spend that much time with him some how convinced him that spending 2 HOURS A WEEK together was more than enough for a relationship. His original, darwinistic, genetic code-programmed response was,

"BS, 2 hours PER WEEK? We're not boyfriend girlfriend, we're kind of maybe seeing each other a little."

Naturally a battle of "how much time is the appropriate amount of time" ensued, but he lost as she constantly wore him down AND ULTIMATELY CONVINCED HIM THAT HE WAS BEING SELFISH AND JEALOUS FOR WANTING TO SPEND MORE THAN 2 HOURS A WEEK WITH HER!

The point was he became "inured" to her unrealistic definition of a "relationship," inevitably capitulated and has ever since been treated like sh!t.

It was the same thing with my married friends. They had lost the battle. They had given up. And instead of having any semblance of self-respect for themselves, they now let their kid run their lives and it could only be obviated by it being seen by an outside observer who deems screeching children socially unacceptable.

Regardless, the event did re-teach me a lesson. Be happy with what you have if you have no children. Sure the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want is great. And of course the largest of all reasons not to have children; ALL the income in "income PER CAPITA" is spent on you, because you are the only capita. But, boy, after last night, I really started to appreciate the nothingness serenity and calmness known as silence.