Choke him real good

A box of strozzapreti hopped off a shelf in Osimo, headed to the sea, and booked passage on a freighter to the Promised Land. When it finally arrived in Staten Island, things were not as it expected.

One thing led to another, and it fled to New Jersey, where it wasn't any happier. The thing is, it had unrealistic expectations and thus will probably never be happy.

I was in no hurry when I went to rescue it, so I stopped by to visit Ari's mom. She loves WKXW 101.5 FM, so I just sat on the kitchen floor and rocked back and forth while we listened to some stupid call-in show about changing one's name for marriage.

My opinion is this: if your last name is something moderately pleasant, such as King, do not change it to something horrifying, like Herschmuckler. If your name is something already horrifying, such as Shimmelshitz, get married as soon as possible to someone with a less offensive name, like Pasayunk. Look at Lou Diamond Phillips; he changed his name from Louis Upchurch, and I unanimously regard that as a good move.

Some of the callers felt that for the sake of tradition and bolstering the bonds of marriage, a woman should always take her husband's name. Some callers felt that, realistically speaking, since one is bound to divorce the person to whom one has pledged eternal devotion, probably within the first three years or so, one should retain one's maiden name to save effort later.

Many of the observations that the realistic forecast for a marriage is short-term included anecdotes about how finances are generally kept separate these days. Very frequently I see married people loaning their spouses money, or arguing about who's going to pay for something. I find all of this quite bizarre. It's certainly not how married people behaved while I was growing up.

I bid Ari's mom good day, grabbed the box of strozzapreti, and escaped New Jersey. I have a few stories about misunderstandings over the tomato content of certain pasta sauces, but I like to save those for later.