Wizards Life Advice by Xeno. Number 4.
Three mistakes
Today we again welcome guest columnist Franco. Because of the subject matter I would not touch this one with a ten-foot pole. I received a letter, and I asked my dear friend Franco to address the question. Remember now, any resulting howlers should be addressed to Franco.
Dear Xeno:
I have met the witch of my dreams. She is a bit of a princess though. Well, a lot of a bit of Princess. Now that I think about it, when it comes down to it she is spoiled. Oh my, hey hey. But my little witch is persistent. She wants to get married, she wants children, and a big manor house. I am but a simple wizard, a shop keeper, what should I do?
Signed, Unsure I can meet her expectations.
Dear: Unsure:
I say to you with all conviction: "Three mistakes you don't make."
Three colossal mistakes most wizards make: "They get married, they have children and they buy a house!" I have a good pisan, (buddy) let's call him Dominic. Name changed to protect him from howlers I'm sure this column will generate. He is better than a friend, rather more like an uncle, always there with kind advice, a font of knowledge about life, work and marriage. How to treat witches, etc. I think he wrote the book about charming witches. If not he should have. A real Wizard. A wizard to look up too. Right up there with Merlin and The-Boy-Who-Lived. Someone who has been there, done that, from the same culture, growing up like I did. We have many commonalities. We are both Italian wizards, grew up with extended family around, army, college, marriage! Grizzled veteran of the Mars vs Venus quagmire of long-term male female relationships.
Except for the Army experience Dominic and I have experienced much of life in the same way, albeit it occurred for him about 15 years before me, so Dominic is my friend and mentor whom I proudly think of as Uncle Dom or Zio in formal Italian. I remember what Zio said one day about 20 years ago, clearly like it was yesterday: "Pazzo! (means crazy in Italian) What do you want to get married for? Remember the top three things I've learned in my long life: Don't get married, don't have kids and don't buy a house!"
A 'Bullone de touno' (Thunderbolt) hit me smack in the back of the head! I was thunderstruck? It was like getting hit with a Bludger while playing Quidditch. I saw stars. Just like the Black sisters, Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa! Oh, off subject here. Why didn't I meet him like 25 years before? Before I had made those same mistakes? Before I had gotten married and traveled down the road to eternal hen-peck-a-tude? Before I had purchased an Albatross (house) that hug around my neck like a Troll and was bewitched into having children; who at the same time are the ultimate joy and heartache? Oh, please move out and get a J-O-B and get off my payroll! Oh, to have only known and to have shared in the hard-won knowledge of Zio Dominic at an earlier age!
Which brings me to another thought. A certain witch who is close to me and who is to remain anonymous upon penalty of my immediate dismemberment and use in potions told me the following on many occasions: "Follow the mantra of "Single and Rich! Less head and heart ache." Another friend opined: "That some witches are just too high maintenance, like my wife! You need to set up her own allowance vault and no matter what she threatens you with don't give her the keys to the family vault. " Henny Youngman said it way back in Muggle Vaudeville: "Take my witch, PLEASE!" The lesson is beware of witches with deadly weapons like wands who have no qualms about using them! I shudder to think if my witch was even adequate at potions. I'd be pickled like a newt by now.
Dam he knew all about it, he had the courage to pass his knowledge on to the younger lads, but alas we just didn't listen. Another acquaintance I have run into was a wizard who was an industrial engineer who worked for a major muggle multi-national construction firm building ekletricty power plants in third world locations around the globe. It's a muggle thing. He did that instead of taking a job at the ministry. All right he ran away form home and expectations. Well I ran into him when I was a bar tender in a far earlier age working towards my mastery in Charms. His hard-won advice was to rent "Temporary Wives" like he did when working on location. Get your mind out of the gutter he said. Just hire a local someone to go to the market for you, do the cleaning, laundry and cooking and stay away from the entanglements of the heart. "Dames is just not woirth da headache days give ya". I hope you get his Brooklyn accent. "You don't havta pay dem alimoney when use leave for the next job." Serious advice for a wizard.
It also brings to mind the old Greek barber I went to when I was in Hogwarts and needed a quick trim. I just never mastered the grooming charm. I never had even hair when I did it my self. He must have been almost one hundred years old. He looked that way anyway. He always said his hair turned white the day he got married and it fell out when he had kids. Hmmmm, something to think about. His shop was the first floor and he had a flat above it. We could hear his witch yelling at him from upstairs occasionally when we were in the chair. He used to say Witch's should be seen and not heard, or the biggie: "Witch's is good for only two things and if she can't cook..." and that's when she would yell and he would roll his eyebrows and say "See what I mean? What If they don't know cleaning charms? He raised his eyebrows with that one. Don't make the same mistake" I did as he shook his finger back and forth. "You be doing all the chores your self."
So there you have it, sage advice from some famous and not so famous Wizards who have gone before. So someday you will sit back in your favorite chair, look around you and admire or not, the house you own, the children and grandchildren and your wife and you can answer whether or not you should have followed Zio's advice to: 'Don't get married, don't have kids and don't buy a house!' 😊