Like many concerned Americans, I would like to do something about the fact that nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. I believe the problem is that marriage is tough, while dating is way too easy. Take dinner and a movie as a typical and time-honored illustration. Sure, it's romantic sipping wine and watching Amelie or, if you happen to have execrable taste, knocking back half a dozen Schlitz Malt Liquors and watching Tom Green get doused in elephant semen. But how does this experience in anyway prepare you for the nigh-Biblical trial of marriage? How does it prepare you for sickness and poverty, for bad children and worse in-laws, for decades-long periods of anxiety, fatness, and sexual ennui? The answer is, not very well. Going to restaurants and movies to prepare for marriage is like spinning around really fast to prepare for being an astronaut.

That's why I've created a new dating service that brings NASA-grade standards to courtship at a price you can afford. We're Dante's Dating, and our slogan is, "Taking hopeful couples to Hell and back in about a week."

What can you expect as a Dante's customer? First you and your date will be whisked off to a secret location. I'm kidding, of course. First you'll pay us the requisite fee and then you'll be whisked off to a secret location. (The location is secret because we haven't finished totaling bribes yet, but right now Haiti and El Salvador are in a dead heat.)

Once your plane lands, you and your date will cool your heels in a hot, filthy lounge while Dante's employees pretending to be customs clerks process your paperwork. This experience will test you and your date for patience and good humor, crucial prerequisites for a successful marriage. You might pass the time by buying peanuts from the vending machine, listening to repetitious foreign music, or looking at pictures in the newspaper. You will have to look at the pictures because all the words will be in Spanish. Even if you can read Spanish, you will have to look at the pictures, because the newspaper will use made-up Spanish-sounding words that you cannot possibly know. If either of you get angry right away, it's back to America with you.

But if you refrain from weeping or overturning the vending machine for six hours, you will pass on to the next phase, in which Dante's employees pretending to be police will find something suspicious in your luggage, making it necessary for you to be separated from your date and interrogated by the creepy German guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark. He will introduce himself as Dietrich ("My name ees Dietrich," he will probably say) and then he will rip the electric cord out of a lamp and ask you to please draw your attention to the blue electricity zigzagging between the wires. "Vee can do thees zee hard vay," he will explain, "or vee can do thees zee easy vay." As you have probably guessed, the "hard way" refers to a close encounter with the little blue zigzag, while the "easy way" refers to incriminating your date on trumped-up smuggling charges. If either of you rat out the other, it's back to America with you.

But if you remain defiant, you can look forward to having much more fun during the remainder of your trip. There will be reggae music and mai tais, and just when you're pleasantly drunk and your date is off doing something else, a handsome stranger will attempt to seduce you. If either of you accept the stranger's room key, it's back to America with you.

But if you both keep your pants on, you will be accosted by a tearful orphan. If you ignore his pleading, you heartless son of a bitch, it's back to America with you.

But if you're kind to him, you will get to enjoy more mai tais when you're not patching the tires of your Land Rover or defending your date's honor from lecherous goat-herds.

Then, all too soon, your magical vacation will come to an end. If you and your date have failed any portion of the testing, it's back to America with you. But if you have each demonstrated courage, loyalty, kindness, and resourcefulness, you will receive permission to marry.

But if your check bounces, you heartless son of a bitch, my henchmen and I will burst into your wedding and pelt the bride with herrings.