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Flesh Club
Practical union contracts emerge as a replacement for more traditional forms of marriage. Instead of guaranteeing lifelong fidelity, practical unions must be renewed every 18 months. While in such a union, “each party is assured of companionship, as well as care, if care is needed, for the designated period”; if the union collapses, the state steps in to provide care. Practical union clauses specifically do not forbid infidelity, and in fact often go hand in hand with patronage of the flesh clubs. Margo and the narrator are in two consecutive practical unions with each other; in the chapter “The Forest for the Trees,” the government adds the option to add a third party to the practical union.
Practical Union Quotes in Things We Didn’t See Coming
The Things We Didn’t See Coming quotes below are all either spoken by Practical Union or refer to Practical Union. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Forest for the Trees
Quotes
If my desperate fifteen-year-old self were here, it would marvel at my excellent fortune. It's all been the result of my insistence on the practical union in the first place. I opted for it to protect—I thought—my heart, but Margot exploited it to expand our world. When I proposed, getting down on one knee even, she said, “If you want it, I'm going to make you use it.”
Name an act, a theft, a drug, a social rung, a job, a dream: we have tried it or abstained only for reasons of health or sanity or law. The goals don't always entice me, but they entice Margo, and I will be quiet or charming or rough in order to reach them.
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Practical Union Term Timeline in Things We Didn’t See Coming
The timeline below shows where the term Practical Union appears in Things We Didn’t See Coming. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Forest for the Trees
...speech about male infertility. He and Margo are close to the end of their second practical union , so they need to re-sign the form—promising that they will be “responsible” partners for...
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...always more alert than he gives her credit for. The narrator closes out of the practical union form and returns to writing the speech about Juliet’s fertility initiative. Juliet kisses the narrator,...
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During their first practical union , Margo became insistent that the narrator needed to have “extra-union” sex, more for her...
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...the air, since “height alone doesn’t confer protection these days.” The narrator returns to the practical union contract, and notices that a new clause has been added: the union can now be...
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...is therefore excited about the opportunity of adding her, under this new law, to their practical union . As he considers this, Margo appears, wrapped in a towel and holding a glass...
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...future was. After a while, the narrator explains his desire to add Juliet to the practical union contract. Margo hesitates at first—in part because she has one-on-one sex with Juliet more often...
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...wonders what his 15-year-old self would think, and he marvels that while he wanted the practical union with Margo to protect himself emotionally, she had “exploited it to expand our world.” Juliet...
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...does, and the narrator wonders if maybe Juliet actively wants to be part of the practical union , if she’s “buttering [them] up” just as they’re trying to do to her.
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...announcing that she has planned this overnight to celebrate Margo and the narrator re-signing their practical union contract.
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