STRANGER THAN FICTION: SUPRISES IN MARRIAGE CAN PROVE HARD TO SWALLOW

Even a few years of dating before marriage can't reveal all that awaits.

Marjorie and William make a cute couple.

He's 68, she's somewhere in that neighborhood. They met at a senior citizens' Christmas social last year, fell in love on their first date and got married in March. Some of his eight kids and her three were pretty skeptical.

"My daughter said, 'Mu-theeerrrr, can't you two just LIVE together and see how you like it?'" Marjorie told me. "But I told her I wasn't going through all the trouble of just moving my stuff in and then finding out I didn't like William and then having to move everything out."

Besides, William said, he'd already bought Marjorie a new set of dishes to symbolize their new start on life. Not exactly symbolism as deep as say, the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, but it worked for them.

They both admit they've had a few surprises about each other. But because of their age and just the general cuteness of their story, you have to believe their marriage is going to be great.

Not so for Nancy and Bob. He was in his early 30s, she in her late 20s when they met at church. Sounds like a good start, except that Bob was still trying to get over his first wife. I'll never forget when the loving couple stopped by to tell me they planned to marry a whole two months after they'd met.

"We want to get married while there's still some surprises left," Bob explained.

After they left, my roommate quipped that any surprises they discovered were bound to be unpleasant. "He probably picks his nose at the table and passes gas in his sleep," she said.

Well, the world may never know. But Nancy and Bob were living in different states within about a year of their wedding day. You make the call.

So there you have two examples of just how surprising a marriage can be, and how it can go either way once all those dirty little secrets come out.

But there can be plenty of surprises even when a marriage follows several years of dating. For example, the Other Half and I became friends in 1991. We started dating in 1992. We married in 1995. And yet the surprises continue.

At first they were pretty tame. He didn't like chocolate. I didn't like tuna casserole. He couldn't swim. I couldn't tie a cherry stem with my tongue. Ho-hum.

But here we are in our fourth year of marriage, and things are getting out of control.

Here are the things about me that have changed since our wedding day: I've gained a dress size and I've grown my traditionally short hair out a little in the back so I'll look more like Dharma and less like Greg.

Here are the things that have changed about The Other Half in the last two months: He wears retro clothing, including two hemp necklaces and several shirts with zippered necklines. His ear is pierced, and he's thinking about getting another piercing right by the first. He has facial hair -- a goatee.

He wears socks with those hippie-looking sandals. He's getting his hair streaked tomorrow. He boxed up his collection of 45s from the 1980s and now is collecting the alternative music of the 1990s, including Cake's cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," which has the F-word in it.

He hangs out with indoor soccer players. A girl that couldn't have been more than 16 came up and hugged him in the Civic Center parking lot after a game Sunday night. "We won!" she yelled.

In short: I married a conservative, all-American boy who (SURPRISE!) turned out to be a hemp-wearing punk who attracts teen-aged girls.

I'm not sure how all this is going to play out. Maybe Mr. Half will be content with me staying the way I am.

If not, I'm ready to break out my whole new Courtney-Love-in-Hole look, and I've got the torn-up slips and hair dye to prove it!

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who now lives in Pensacola, Fla.