In an age of instant weddings and quickie divorces, Scott and Janet Pearson's milestone is all the more impressive: the Laguna Niguel couple has been married for five years.
You read that right: the Pearsons have remained attached for as long as the hallowed OC Weekly has been in existence. They even have a cute code for that long-past era when they exchanged vows. It was “BM,” or “Before Monica.” Some of the Weekly's younger readers will find it hard to believe, but the Earth was indeed revolving before President Bill Clinton and his cigar rendezvoused with that woman.
Before sitting back and trying to recount those five years of wedded bliss, the Pearsons mentioned how their 3-year-old son, Russell, just a couple of days before pulled open the waistband of his underwear, looked down at his nether regions and remarked, “I have a big pee-pee, Mommy—look!”
Russell's observation would prove to be keen. For instance, when the Pearsons were asked to think back five years and explain what was different then, Janet remarked with a hint of desperation, “We had sex a lot.”
“Those were the days,” Scott added with a blank stare that seemed to focus on 1995. “That's when I used to look into my underwear and go, 'Mommy, I have a big pee-pee, and you can see it!'”
They were first set up on a blind date at their work, which was then McDonnell-Douglas in Long Beach. Scott still works there, but the sign outside now reads, “Boeing.” Janet now works for a South County computer-projection company.
Their first date was on a Saturday night. The second was at a South County sports bar two nights later. “I remember the first time we had sex was after that Monday Night Football game,” said Scott, like a retired quarterback recounting his game-winning touchdown.
“And I had only had two beers,” added Janet, still amazed.
“The Redskins won,” Scott recalled of the other victors that night.
They dated for 18 months before tying the knot. Making their courtship all the more astonishing was the fact that when Scott moved in, Janet's roommate did not move out. In fact, Mary didn't leave until five months after they got hitched.
“It was a big thing when she was going to leave because she was going to have to move back to New Jersey,” Scott remembered. “So I tried everything. I came out with my pants down—all kinds of stuff.”
“You were doing that?” asked Janet, dumbfounded.
“I didn't care,” Scott continued. “It just embarrassed her so much. I'd come out with all kinds of shit. It was great just watching her turn red. She didn't have a lot of boyfriends.”
“You were standing there with no pants on in front of Mary?” Janet asked again, incredulous.
“Well, I had my underwear on,” Scott said defensively.
“Mommy, I have a big pee-pee, and you can see it!” remarked Janet in a little kid's voice.
So how are things different now than they were five years ago?
“I used to clean,” said Janet. “I used to do laundry. He didn't watch as much television.”
“I don't think that's true,” Scott interjected. “I was probably watching more TV then; it's just that now there's less time to do it, so when I do, it's more noticeable.”
The interviewer, who was sitting next to his own wife, offered a hearty “hurumph, hurumph” to Scott's theory.
“Life was a lot easier then because there were no kids,” said Scott, who also has a second child with Janet, baby Adam.
“No kids. Right,” mom added with a dazed stare.
“Yeaaaaah, no kids,” said dad, equally distanced. “Life was a lot easier five years ago.”
“It was,” agreed Janet, “because we didn't have any responsibilities.”
“Once we had Russell, we bought the house,” Scott said. “Back then, you were only worried about yourself and your spouse.”
“And your roommate,” Janet reminded us.
“Yeah, what a loser,” said Scott. “Back then, you got up, went to work, came home, and if you just wanted to flop at the end of the day, you could. Now it's really a grind. You have to get up early in the morning and get the kids ready to go to daycare, take them to Long Beach, pick them up at the end of the day, bring them back, and make sure everyone gets bathed and fed and all that stuff. So it's a lot more of a project than it used to be.”
This fifth-anniversary stroll down memory lane would not be complete without knowing one other thing from the bygone days: How did OC Weekly figure into their lives back then?
“Scott stopped reading the man-to-man ads,” said Janet. “He calls fewer 900 numbers now.”
After she stopped laughing, she looked over at Scott and said, “We're getting divorced, aren't we?”
“Wanted!” says Scott, reciting his own man-to-man ad.
“We used to read it a lot,” said Janet, now serious. “Back five years ago, we could actually sit and read OC Weekly.”
“That's why your readership went down by two,” explained Scott.
So they're the two!
Scott wondered how life might be different if the Weekly was still lying around his house.
“Daddy, what does 'Wanted: Manmeat' mean?” he asks in the same little-kid voice Janet used earlier. “Can I get a manmeat? Is that like Pokmon?
“Well, son,” he continues, this time in his grown-up voice, “I do call it my little Pokmon.”
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.