Wife Rule #81: Kill Two Birds With One Stone

Problem 1: Life is short and should not be wasted.

Problem 2: Yet, time seems to drag on at an intolerably slow pace sometimes.

I remember well before our marriage, when my wife and I were attending college together, how it would seem like I was literally going to die if I didn't see her soon. Yet dreary, drab coursework was always there, separating us. Fresh, new love is a beautiful, bittersweet thing.

In such dire circumstances, the clever suitor will double-up; that is, whenever possible, apply a single solution to two problems: How to (1) reconcile the wasting of precious life seconds doing something utterly undesirable, while (2) passing the time before reuniting with the object of my heart-throbbing?

I was searching through some old files on our home computer today, and I stumbled across a document entitled "Petrarchan Sonnet Essay Paper." Some horrible drivel I was forced to write to appease some professor, was my immediate thought. But since the title contained the word "sonnet," I thought perhaps I would take a look.

I was delighted to rediscover (since I have no memory of composing it) a love sonnet that I had indeed written to satisfy some class assignment, but which I had apparently actually put some thought into as well, shrewdly transforming it into a potent wife-wooing, point-scoring triumph.

Since I had absolutely no idea what a Petrarchan Sonnet is, I did a quick read through Wikipedia's article (Don't you just love the Internet? I am never using the Dewey Decimal system again!).

It seems that the key components of a Petrarchan Sonnet are:

1) It's about unattainable love
2) There are 14 lines, divided into:
   a) two 4-line thoughts that introduce and then expound upon the love problem, and
   b) with a dramatic change in tone, a six-line solution.
3) The first eight lines have this rhyme scheme: abbaabba
4) The last six lines have this rhyme scheme: cdecde
5) Its author is a burly-chested, muscularly-chiseled, stallion of a man

Okay, I admit that I made that last one up, but only because it fits my situation so perfectly. Without further ado, let's see how I did:

* * *

How Long Shall Dreams of Pure Delight Still Warm

How long shall dreams of pure delight still warm
My troubled heart, though only for a day
Do my true feelings of devotion sway
My mind from plants and cells to her true charm?

Are gorgeous hair and curvy hips a crime?
No, no! They please the weary student's heart,
Though thoughts of joy and love make study part
Aside for aspirations more divine.

Be gone, all books, all study's ruthless toil,
All reading, fighting for a better grade,
All boredom, all exams, all vain desire!

For fantasies of love the grades would spoil
If sought more than the purpose man was made:
To love, to live, towards the heav'ns aspire!

* * *

In my be-it-ever-so-humble opinion, I pretty much hit this one out of the park (and I got the "A" and the girl to prove it). Talk about killing two birds!

Now if only I could figure out some way to woo my wife while mowing the lawn...