Yeah, right.

It's true, we really did want to do all of that, but in fact this particular occasion was actually a shotgun wedding. No, no, no - there are no proverbial buns in the oven, but our CPA holds the weapon, giving us until Dec. 31st to salvage our reputation as the Most Fiscally Irresponsible Couple in Recent Memory.

You see, our crib, that is to say, our home, for the last seven years, is in my name, but I don't make enough money to get the full deduction on the mortgage interest, and Mark, who pays the mortgage and could really use the tax break, can't deduct the interest because his name is not on the deed.

Indeed.

"Is this a problem?" we asked our CPA. "How much could we have actually saved otherwise?" "Well," he replied mournfully, "Thousands and thousands."

Like Homer Simpson might have said,

"DOPE."

It's true, we've been financial dopes.

Well, dope springs eternal in the human breast. Or is it hope? Of course, Woody Allen said,

"Marriage is the death of hope."

We're kind of hoping it's the death of dope.

Besides, no less than Samuel Johnson concluded,

"Remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience."

In sum, we do remain hopeful, but in our case remarriage is the triumph of federal tax laws over dopey but blissful inertia.

Now the thing was to figure out who, what, where, when and how to make this marriage redux happen. We had about a week.