As many of you already know, Hot Andrea and I got engaged on Friday, May 13th, and I am just now getting around to writing an article about it.  You would think that for a guy who leads a life that is as uninteresting as mine I would get around to talking about such a major life-altering event sooner, but with my friend Bill headed out to "Southwest Asia" with the Army and resident Viking Warrior Jack Shannon threatening to "gourge out" my eyes if I didn't post something from him, I've been otherwise preoccupied.  Obviously if you've made it this far you've managed to deal with it.

First off, I'm sure many of you are curious how a retard like myself was able to land a chick like Hot Andrea.  Well, it just so happens that I have a theory on this.  It's the ring.  It's like bribery.  That's why it's one of the oldest traditions in history; it's like you go out and drop a couple of G's on the nicest thing you can find and then use it to sweeten the deal, sort of like "your gift with purchase".  So when you propose you're not just asking her to be with you forever, you're saying, "will you marry me... AND get this nice, shiny ring?  It's really pretty... and expensive... ?"  How can any girl say no to that?  That's why you need to be CERTAIN that you have a ring when you propose.  My theory is that if you get a nice enough ring, you can probably trick just about any girl into marrying you.

Now since I dropped the news that I'm engaged I've met with a lot of different reactions, ranging from the standard "congratulations" to "it's about time" to the unexpectedly common "you're never going to get another blowjob for the rest of your life".  Well this week, I've decided to let you all in on what the major benefits are from living with Hot Andrea.  After you read this, you will more than understand why I've decided to marry her (though barring my above theory I cannot possibly hope to explain why she would want to marry me) and you can all rest easy and buy me engagement or wedding presents.  In case you're curious, we're going to register at Chuck E. Cheese's, Brookline Army/Navy Surplus and GameStop.

Hot Andrea and I Have a Unique Relationship Dynamic

Before I really get into the heart of this update, you should probably first understand the relationship dynamic between Andrea and I.  On the pop-culture scale, we're a pretty healthy combination between Monica Gellar and Chandler Bing from Friends, Eric Foreman and Donna Pinciatti from That 70's Show, and Zapp Brannigan and Leela from Futurama, if Leela had two eyes and dark hair and Zapp was a department administrator instead of an intergalactic space adventurer.  Basically speaking, I'm pretty much a bumbling goofy dude who tries really hard to be suave and funny but comes off as neither and she's got a caustic wit and is way to hot for me but inexplicably sticks around anyways.  I think that pretty much sums it up nicely, though the fact that I just compared my life to that of a couple white suburban yuppie sitcoms makes me feel like I should go boil myself in oil or shiv somebody on the street with a cleverly folded toilet paper roll or something.

A sexy mistake.

Hot Andrea Makes Sure I Maintain a Modicum of Personal Hygiene

Since I've started living with a girl I've noticed that I pay a lot more attention to whether or not I am wearing deoderant or pants.  Maybe spending a lot more time doing all this fruity froo-froo stuff like "taking a shower", "brushing my teeth" and "taking out the garbage instead of living in my own filth" is sort of a weird thing to consider as being a benefit of living with Andrea, but the fact remains that I'm a more accepted member of society and am in a lot better physical condition than I was before we moved in together.  I'm given to some minor lapses, like when Andrea comes home late from work and finds that I've decided to fish that old bag of chips out of the garbage can because "there are probably some good pieces left", but on the whole I find that living with a girl makes me a lot less disgusting person.  Hell, I'm even doing stuff like "washing my clothes after I wear them" and "using shampoo" and all this weird stuff that I had only heard about before.  While the original impetus to this new surge of cleanliness might have been the fact that I knew there was no way she was going to want to sleep with me if I reeked of stale booze and beef jerky, I find that maintaining this new lifestyle is really actually pretty easy and rewarding in a number of ways.  I find that people don't mind sitting next to me as much as they used to and I also discovered that the funky smell in my car was actually generated by me and not the old McDonald's bags in the back seat.  The only real drawback to not looking like a homeless leper is that people don't throw spare change at me when I ask them for directions anymore.

I should probably also mention here that a condition of moving in with Andrea was that I had to stop eating stuff for money.  This used to be a mildly interesting trick of mine, and some of the stuff I would eat (hot sauce, floppy disks, dollar bills) would net me some pretty good cash.  However, I find now that I've stopped responding so enthusiastically to the phrase, "Hey Ben, I dare you to eat this", I get sick a lot less often.  Who would have thought you could get lockjaw from eating a handful rusty tacks for $5?

What means "wash hands"?

Hot Andrea Is Obsessed With Red Sox Baseball

This wasn't a prerequisite for marrying me until I moved up here and went to my first game at Fenway Pahk.  While my newfound (three seasons now) love for the Boston Red Sox has been pretty well documented on this site up to this point, I think that Andrea would have axed me a long time ago if she didn't understand my obsession.  Luckily for me, she's just as fanatical as I am about the whole thing.  When I saw her bawling her eyes out after Aaron Boone clinched the ALCS for the Yankees in 2003, I knew that this was the girl I was going to marry.  Together we've probably watched close to three hundred games of Red Sox baseball in the last two and a half seasons, and it's a pretty safe bet that even if we grow further apart than Simon and Garfunkel in the next twenty years we will both still be able to talk about how much Kevin Millar sucks and how the Sox are going to keep the game close just so that they can blow it in the 9th.

Hot Andrea Has 1337 Cooking Skillz

I am the shittiest cook in the history of the world.  I know that this might be a bold statement to make, but I absolutely feel that it is true.  My toast-making skills involve Andrea coming home from work and going, "why does it smell like fire in here" and me responding with, "don't look in the garbage can".  One time I burned ramen.  Not actual make-it-in-a-pot "real" ramen, but the "fill cup with water and put in microwave for three minutes" styrofoam instant ramen cups, so managing to burn that is like the cooking equivalent of choking to death because you forgot to breathe.  Yeah, I forgot to put the water in, and when I returned to the dorm kitchen I found a melted hockey puck of a cup and a whole lot of smoke.  Of course, I did the manly thing and ran back to my dorm room before anyone saw me and left the kitchen to fend for itself.

My cooking woes probably stem from the fact that I rarely cooked growing up, and throughout my college years my constant motto was "if I can't order it as take-out or successfully make it in the microwave eight out of ten times, it's probably not worth eating".  So when left to my own devices I sustain life solely on cans of generic Albertson's soda, three-minute microwaveable cup ramen (the lowest common denominator of the food pyramid), Budget Gourmet's 89-cent microwaveable pasta with fake instant cheese and those bigass Hungry Man chicken dinners.  It's pretty safe to say that I would have died of a heart attack by the time I was twenty-four, considering that I was ingesting about eight thousand percent of my daily recommended sodium intake at every meal.  Luckily, living with Andrea has changed all of that. 

Andrea can cook her ass off.  It's hard to mention this as a girlfriend benefit without sounding like a circa 1950's wife-beating "get your ass in the kitchen and make me some damn babies and pies bitch" crew-cut wearing Ward Cleaver type, but the fact is that living with someone of Andrea's culinary talent has been good for my heart in more than the trite "I love my girlfriend" way, but also in that "Not saturating my blood with sodium and animal meat by-products and actually eating real food" way.  She's Greek, so I've been introduced to a lot of foods I'd never eaten before, like "spanakopita", "baklava", "actual chicken meat" and "vegetables"; most of which are pretty good.  Living with Andrea is awesome because it's like I get a restaurant-quality meal without having to shell out seven bucks and I get to watch Jeopardy! or SportsCenter while I'm eating.

Mmm... Amazing Ben's special "chicken teriyaki".

Hot Andrea Serves as the Voice of Reason

As much as I hate to admit it, Andrea is probably the only reason that I've lived as long as I have.  She's always giving me good advice whenever I come up with an awesomely Xtreme idea and generally speaking she makes sure that I pose as little of a threat to myself as humanly possible without being a total pain in the ass about it like some chicks can be.  Here are some of the bits of sage advice that she's enlightened me with over the past years that have really helped me out when I needed it.

1.   "Maybe you should go to the hospital."
2.   "That chick is a real bitch.  You should kick her in the teeth."
3.   "Yes it would be cool, but if you mess up you will probably die."
4.   "Why piss in his glove box when you can just smash his windshield with a tire iron?"
5.   "Maybe you should put your contacts in before you try that."
6.   "I believe you that you could hit the train from here.  I'm just saying that it's not a good idea."
7.   "I don't think Business Reply Mail works like that."
8.   "Let's get out of here before somebody finds this."

As you can see, these are pretty important words of wisdom, and thanks to Andrea I've managed to be Xtreme to the max, but not to the point where I've had to have any limbs amputated or organs transplanted.

Living with Hot Andrea Probably Pisses Off My Ex-Girlfriends

Both of my previous long-term girlfriends know Andrea.  The first girl I was with for more than a year was good friends with Andrea when we all lived in the dorms together at FSU and actually blamed Andrea for breaking her and I up.  I tend to think that it had a little more to do with the fact that she was making out with any guy who asked her where the student union was and then lying to me when I called her on it, but if she wants to go ahead and pin everything on Andrea that just makes my quest to piss her off all the easier.  So ha ha, I'm marrying the girl that used to be good friends with you.  Maybe if you didn't suck so many dicks while we were together then things would have worked out differently.

The other girl I dated for over a year secretly harbored a long-standing resentment for Andrea, to the point where it sort of became a one-woman feud.  Andrea of course had no idea that this chick hated her so much, but that's just the way it goes I guess.  Either way, it got to the point where my ex-girlfriend actually contacted my mother once I started dating Andrea and made up all this horrible shit about her so that my mother would try to talk me out of my new relationship.  That's pretty crazy.  This girl kept showing up at my house and trying to tell me that Andrea was going to go off and get it on with my arch-rival and that I shouldn't date her or whatever, but in the end I guess it didn't work out all that well.

Does the fact that I enjoy knowing that I'm pissing off my ex-girlfriends make me a sad bitter man, especially considering that they probably don't give me a second thought anymore?  The answer is yes.  However, I'm just a sick enough asshole to list that as a benefit of living with Andrea.

Hot Andrea Is a Hack-and-Slash Goddess

In one of the nerdiest things I will ever write, I'm going to list Andrea's love of console-based action-RPGs as one of my favorite things about her.  She doesn't do the shooting games, but from Gauntlet to Baldur's Gate to Champions of Norrath or Dynasty Warriors, if it's two-player and involves hacking shit to death with a huge-ass sword while collecting potions or power-ups it's a pretty safe bet that Andrea is down to spend the better part of an evening drinking cider and hammering the square button with me while we swear at the TV and talk about what ability we're going to put our skill points in once we level up.  Considering that I've spent the better part of my life playing video games, this has to be considered a plus.  Also, she's inexplicably excellent at fighting games like Rune: Viking Warlord, Soul Calibur II and Dead or Alive despite the fact that she just smashes all the buttons indiscriminately.  I generally try to explain it by pointing to the fact that she has really small fingers.  How does that give her an advantage?  I don't know.

Hot Andrea Has Huge Tits

If I was making a list of things that are small and attached to Andrea's body, I would not write the word "breasts".  They are huge;  as large as you can get without being disproportionately big.  I can say without exaggeration or hyperbole that Andrea's Breasts are the most awesome things you will probably ever see in your entire life even if you live to be three thousand years old and witness the apocalypse and see Marlon Brando's ghost doing a cannonball into a wading pool full of margaritas while he is on fire.  They are absolutely perfectly shaped and when she wears a tight polo shirt (one of the greatest creations in the history of the world), you swear that she could probably flex them and they would rip her shirt right off like when The Incredible Hulk gets really pissed off and turns green.  Only she wouldn't be green.  Just shirtless.  It rules.  Plus, her mutant X-man power is that her nipples get hard when she sneezes.  That is also awesome.

Andrea is the cleavage queen of North America.

Hot Andrea Is Usually Around When I'm Being Xtreme to the Max

Few things are more frustrating to the action hero than doing something totally radical and then turning around to grab your girlfriend and finding that she's not there.  I mean, how much less Xtreme would the end of Army of Darkness been if that random chick hadn't come flying into Ash's arms after he blasted to zombie old lady shopper to death with his longrifle?  It's the little details like that that really make the whole action hero thing come together, and one of the hugest benefits of living with Andrea is that she's pretty much always around.  While it's nice to have a beautiful woman around so that you can look at her whenever you want, it's even better when you can hold her in a heroic fashion once you do something cool.

For instance, the other day we were sitting in my living room watching the Sox get shelled by the Orioles.  All of a sudden, this powerful orchestral arrangement starts blaring and a ninja strike team busts through the window and kicks down the front door!  I leap up as shuriken and throwing knives go flying around the living room and I manage to grab by katana off the wall just in time to start whipping people's asses like some kind of American Ninja or something.  Well, I manage to kill most of the ninjas by cracking their skulls between my forearms and biceps while flexing and kicking them in the balls with a steel-toed boot, and just as I finish off the last one by taking one of his smoke bombs and shoving it down his throat the music changes to a romantic hero power ballad with guitars and strings!  Andrea, whose clothes were partially torn off in the battle comes flying into my arms and exclaiming, "oh Ben, you've saved us again!" and all of a sudden a fan starts blowing our hair and the sun sets behind us.  It was actually a pretty typical day in my life, but you have to admit that I would look pretty stupid and awkward standing there by myself just being sweaty and dirty when the romantic power ballad and industrial-grade fans started.  So having Andrea around is really beneficial in that regard.

Plus, Andrea knows the importance of stroking my fragile ego.  It took some time, but she now knows that the correct response when I say, "I could totally take that guy" is "I know you could, any day of the week" and when I'm like, "I don't think anyone in the world is better at this than me", she should just say, "I know this to be true", because otherwise she's going to have to sit there for forty-five minutes while I try to prove to her that I can juggle blenders or do a handspring or eat an entire bag of peeps or do whatever it is that I'm trying to impress her with at that particular moment.

Andrea's got the hero-girlfriend swoon down to a science.

Hot Andrea Is the Bitchiest Person I Know

It is very rare that I meet someone as cynical and sarcastic as me, and it is even more unusual to find someone who is actually BITCHIER than me.  Luckily, I found Andrea.  She can spot a horrible outfit or an unattractive mutant from two hundred paces and can give you the top three things they need to change about their faces in order to avoid being sold to the circus before you can say "she looks like a sausage in a very tight casing".  Got a problem with the Red Sox first baseman or the Yankees catcher?  Just mention that "Millar Sucks" and sit back while she goes off on how "he's not getting paid to make up stupid handshakes with Manny but instead to actually fucking hit the ball or do something other than drunkenly stumble around first base committing errors" or how "Jorge Posada is a dipshit who looks like a penis with a little hat on."  It's hours of entertainment since she's basically as bitchy as they come, but not in that "irritating bitchy slut chick who knows she's hot and is mean as hell to everyone" but more in that "she's bitchy and funny and she'd probably write a good update for my website" way.

Conclusion

I know many of you are probably like, "but Ben these are all wussy things!  What the hell is wrong with you?  Eating beef, being in love and washing your hair is for girls!".  While this may be true, I have found that living with a hot, funny, moderately evil and definitely large-breasted chick has things that appeal to even the most hardcore and manliest of men (i.e., me).  So far our three-year relationship has been infinitely excellent, and I've been lucky enough to find a way to lock Andrea into a relationship with me with a pretty high degree of permanency.  Hopefully, by the time she figures out what a bum deal she's getting, it will be too late!  Ha Ha Ha!!!

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