William Wellstone and his wife Olivia had a love-hate relationship with the opera. She loved it and he hated it. He loved her, though, so he put up with it. Wellstone was a high powered , high priced attorney. He was really good at what he did. So good that he had to beat clients off with a stick. He'd like to beat whoever came up with opera with a stick. Being as good an attorney as he was and making the kind of money he did put Wellstone way up there in terms of money, power, and influence. People like that gravitate towards one another like flies to horse manure. For some reason when people get that way it's expected that they become cultured. Opera instead of pro wrestling. Wellstone has all this money and influence and he gets opera. The first thing he disliked about the opera was having to get dressed in a tuxedo to go. Why? He can't hear any better in a tux than his other clothes. Why can't it be like a rock concert so he could wear jeans and still be overdressed. Tuxedos were not comfortable in any way. Drop something on a tux and it looks bad; do that to jeans and who'd know? Then there was the atmosphere at the theater. Everyone acting as if they had their butts wrapped in an Ace bandage. No one could act relaxed. You couldn't talk about sports there. You had to discuss modern art as if there was any such thing. Kindergarten kids could do better with finger painting. Everyone wearing their false smiles as a badge of their class. Most of them didn't have any class to begin with. Most operas were sung in Italian. Wellstone spoke four languages and Italian wasn't one of them. He couldn't understand a word of it. Olivia Wellstone didn't speak Italian either. She read the book and claimed to enjoy the opera. Wellstone thought that maybe she did. The singing was done in a fashion that even if he spoke the language he wouldn't understand what was being sung. Of course, rock was like that so what the heck. Wellstone figured most of the male singers were gay. Only gay guys would dress that way and sing that way in public. Wellstone didn't have anything against gays unless they were opera singers. The women were scary looking. Wellstone didn't think he could take many of them in a fight even if he fought dirty. He"d definitely be leery of running into one of them in a dark alley- or anywhere else. Olivia had a grand set of opera glasses. Wellstone didn't know why she wanted them. Why would she want to take a closer look at any of this? The opera was like a snack. It may take the edge off but certainly doesn't satisfy. Wellstone would go home after the opera and listen to some Stones with the volume cranked up so high the wallpaper moved. The post opera parties were terrible. He'd slaughter some other attorney in court during the day and have to be nice to him after the opera. The two of them being at the same opera at the same time didn't change anything. "I enjoyed it immensely when Maria Theresa hit that high note in the middle of the third act," someone would say. Wellstone would reply, "Probably someone goosed her." Olivia would scold him for those kinds of remarks. She tell him, "Remarks like that give people the impression you don't like the opera." Yea, he'd think, wouldn't want anyone thinking that. Then, since Olivia was a patron of the arts, someone would bring one of the fat ladies over to meet them. Olivia and the Buffalo Girl would gush all over each other. Wellstone would change his mind about the goosing. No one, but no one, would have the nerve to goose this woman. Or want to. Olivia was a good sport about it all. She'd go to rock concerts with him since he went to operas with her. She'd wear a wig, thick glasses, and get e rent-a-wreck so no one would recognize her. The fact that she was with William Wellstone didn't seem to mean anything he guessed. The post -rock parties were parties!!! No gushing fat ladies; no being nice to your opponents. No lying that you liked it. "Are you ready, dear? We don't want to be late for the opera." Yea, right.