My Leg Hurts

One simple trick to not getting married

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I used to work with this guy named Gus who had a girlfriend who wanted to marry him. He didn’t want to marry her but he didn’t want to break up with her either, and apparently the way that this “worked” was he just kept letting her believe he was on the verge of taking the plunge. This had been going on for eight years.

Something in this story didn’t add up for me. I didn’t know Gus that well but he was very approachable, especially after a few drinks, and one night when he was complaining to a group of us seated around a booth in a dark air conditioned bar getting fucked up after work about how his girlfriend wanted to marry him and he was going to have to talk to her about it, again, I spoke up. “Gus, I gotta ask, how do you keep this up? I mean, when you talk to her, what do you say?”

“I don’t know,” Gus said, “I just tell her some shit about why I can’t get married right now but maybe later.”

“Like what?” I said, “How do you do this for eight years?”

“I don’t know!” Gus scowled at me like I had been making him live with someone who wanted to marry him that he didn’t want to marry, for eight years. “I just make up some shit!”

“Like what?” I said. “Tell me one thing you’ve said that works. I’m not judging you, I’m just curious.”

“I just tell her like, I don’t know!” Gus shouted. “I just say, like, “My leg hurts!”

Everyone burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. I laughed so hard tears were rolling down my cheeks and whoever I was sitting next to and I clutched each other and screamed “My leg hurts,” every ten seconds and then laughed harder.

Gus wasn’t laughing. He watched us all for a while with a disappointed expression, then rolled his eyes and took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, whatever,” he said. “It really does hurt sometimes.”

I have told everyone I know this story, at least six times a year I get a random text that says my leg hurts.

Anyway, the worst symptom of Covid is that my leg hurts. And I keep saying “My leg hurts,” out loud and laughing, even though it does.