Aside from Madonna and Sean Penn, most newlyweds rent their first home. This can actually be a pleasant experience, as you discover the Fun Side of apartment life: getting to know your new neighbors; listening to what kind of music your new neighbors like to play very early in the morning on their 150,000-watt sound system; having your new neighbors’ legs come through your ceiling when water from their leaking toilet rots their floor, etc.

But sooner or later, despite this recurring joy of these communal experiences, you’re going to want to have a place of your very own. Step one is to figure out how expensive a house you can afford. This depends on your combined annual incomes, as is shown by the following chart:

YOUR COMBINED ANNUAL INCOME PRICE OF HOME YOU CAN AFFORD Up to $20,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $20,000-$40,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $40,000-$80,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford. $80,000-$100,000 Don’t be an idiot. There are no homes that you can afford.

But don’t despair, young couples! You can still realize the dream of owning a home of your own, provided you’re willing to do what generations of newlyweds have done before you: roll up your sleeves, do the hard work, and make the tough sacrifices involved in nagging your parents for a down payment. They probably have some money left, even after your wedding, and your job is to whine and wheedle and look pathetic until they give it to you. Make sure you leave them something for food:

COST OF YOUR NEW HOME AMOUNT YOUR PARENTS SHOULD HAVE LEFT FOR FOOD AFTER LENDING YOU THE DOWN PAYMENT

Up to $50,000 $150

$50,000-$100,000 $75

Over $100,000 Various canned goods.

Most young couples begin married life knowing very little about how to argue with each other, and are forced to learn through trial and error. Sadly, some of them never do learn, a good example being that couple on “The Waltons” who never fought about anything, and consequently wound up with three or four hundred children.

There is no need for this kind of tragedy. We veteran married couples have, over the years, especially on long car trips, developed certain time-tested techniques that even an inexperienced person can use to turn any issue, no matter how minor, into the kind of vicious, drawn-out argument where you both spend a lot of time deliberately going through doors you don’t really need to go through, just so you can slam them viciously.

When you get involved in marital arguing, the role model you want to bear in mind is World War I, which got started when some obscure nobleperson, Archduke Somebody, got assassinated way the hell over in the Balkans, and the next thing you know people in places as far away as Cheyenne, Wyoming, were rushing off to war. These were people who wouldn’t have known a Balkan if they woke up in bed with one, but they were willing to get shot at because of what happened there. It’s the same with a good marriage argument. If you really do it right, you should reach the point where neither of you has the vaguest recollection what the original disagreement was, but both of you are willing to get divorced over it. This is the kind of veteran marital relationship you young couples can develop, if you follow these proven techniques.

The most important technique is: Always be on the lookout for conversational openings that can lead to arguments! To illustrate this, let’s look at a typical marital conversation:

MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?

JOHN: Why of course, dear. I’m sorry.

Pretty pathetic, right, married couples? Mary has created the perfect opening for a good argument, and John has totally dropped the ball, by admitting he was wrong. Never admit you’re wrong, young married persons!

Now you’re saying, “But what if John’s socks are right there, on the coffee table? How can he argue about that?”

The answer is: He can’t. So what he has to do is, he has to somehow get the argument, or at least his end of it, focused on a completely different topic, ideally a strident accusation that he has dredged up out of his memory and that is totally unrelated to the issue at hand. This is very important, young married persons: You must always maintain a supply of retaliative, irrelevant accusations in your mind, so that you can dredge them up when you need them.

Let’s say, in this case, that John once thought Mary was flirting with her old flame Bill at a party. This is a good thing to accuse her of in the current argument, as it is totally unrelated to the coffee table. However, John must be careful how he brings it up; if he does it too abruptly, Mary could become confused, and the argument could end right there:

MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?

JOHN: Oh yeah? Well what about your old flame, Bill?

MARY (confused): Huh?

So what John needs to do—this is the essential skill of marital arguing—is to come up with a smooth way to get from Mary’s topic to his topic. This technique is called a “segue,” (pronounced “segue”), and if you do it right, it will usually lead to a whole new series of mutant topics you can argue about. Let’s see how it works:

MARY: Honey, could you please try not to leave your socks on the coffee table?

JOHN: Why do you always do that?

MARY: Always do what?

JOHN: Always look for things to criticize.

MARY: I don’t always look for things to criticize. I just don’t like finding your damn ...

JOHN: Fine. Great. Curse at me. I didn’t see you cursing at Bill, at the Johnsons’ party.

MARY: What is that supposed to mean?

JOHN: Oh, come on. You were flirting with him.

MARY: I was flirting? And I suppose you weren’t all over Jennifer?

JOHN: I don’t see how you could have known what I was doing, after all you had to drink.

See how effectively this veteran married couple handled the situation? In just a few quick sentences, they have gone from a seemingly silly topic, socks, to a whole treasure trove of issues that they can debate and dredge up again for years to come. I’m not saying you young couples will get this kind of results your first time out of the gate, but with a little practice, you’ll get the hang of it, and it can lead to the discovery of a whole new facet of your relationship (see Chapter 11, “How to Put New Life into Your Marriage or Else Get a Divorce”).