The Average American Marriage by Chad Kultgen

setting up a time to meet and talk with him about setting up a time to get a vasectomy. Instead his office tells me I can just set up a time to get the actual vasectomy. No discussion with the doctor is necessary for what they call “such a minor procedure.” Despite the fact that I know there will be laser beams and possibly knives in my ball bag, this puts me at ease a little. I schedule it for the following month, allowing ample time to talk myself out of it should I need to.
    After I hang up, I find some Rumspringa on the Internet and play it loud enough for Holly to hear. With luck, this will come across as a natural and coincidental display of similar interest, not as a transparent attempt to attract her attention.
    I roll my chair out from behind my desk and to the left and peer through my open doorway to see if she notices. As I watch, she actually cocks her head up and back like a deer in the forest who’s detected some faint but familiar noise. She scoots her chair a little closer to my office. I slide mine back to my desk before she can turn and look for the source of the music. I pretend to be working on something just in case my bait actually lures her into my office. It does.
    She knocks on my door frame. I look up from my fake work—tracing over the logo on a piece of letterhead. She says, “Hey.”
    â€œHey. What’s up? More filing troubles?”
    She laughs. She’s hot. She says, “No. I think I got that down now, thanks to you.”
    â€œGlad to be of service.” I want to be of several other kinds of service to her.
    She says, “Are you listening to Rumspringa?”
    â€œYeah. Why?”
    â€œThey’re like one of my favorite bands right now.”
    â€œYeah, they’re good.”
    â€œWhat’s your favorite song?”
    I glance quickly at the screen to see that a song called “Shake ’em Loose” is playing. I say, “ ‘Shake ’em Loose.’ ”
    She says, “ ‘Shake ’em Loose Tonight’?”
    I glance back at the screen and realize that the last word in the song title was cut off in the window where I had the song playing. I say, “Yeah.”
    She says, “I love that one. I really like ‘Queer Eyed Boy,’ too, though.”
    â€œThat’s a great one.”
    â€œYeah. How’d you hear about them? They’re not that big yet.”
    â€œUh . . . you know. I’m into music. Always trying to find new bands and stuff.”
    â€œThat’s so cool. Have you seen them?”
    â€œLive?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œNo. I want to, but I never hear about their shows in time.”
    â€œOh, I could totally let you know next time they’re playing. They’re local. Well, LA local.”
    â€œYeah, that would be awesome.”
    She smiles. I can’t tell if she’s flirting with me or if she’s had a sudden and unexpected realization that she’s attracted to me or if she thinks it’s funny that she has anything in common with a guy my age or if she’s just young and hot and I’m reading far more into it than I should. Whatever the actuality is, she smiles and says, “Cool. I will.” Then she turns around and goes back to her desk.
    A few minutes later I get a Facebook friend request from her.

some chapter
    Facebook Stalking
    I ’m in my office at home. I log onto Facebook. I have forty-six friends. They are all actually my friends or at least people I know. Holly has 739 friends. I can’t imagine they are all actually her friends or at least people she knows.
    I have four profile photos: one of myself in a suit that was taken at work for my employee file, one of myself and my wife that was taken at the company holiday party last year, one of myself and my two kids that was taken by my wife in our backyard, and one of our entire family that Alyna hired a photographer to take about a year ago to be sent out as