The driveway at my house generally looks like a used-car lot, in part because we haven’t been able to fit a vehicle in our garage since about a week after we moved in. There’s a refrigerator, freezer, dog crate, cedar chest and rusting universal gym in there, but no cars.
So the other day, I took notice of what was parked in front of my house:
- a fairly-new Saturn SUV, driven by my wife;
- a sporty red Ford Mustang with new rims and tires and all sorts of decals that my son added, I assume so he could attract even more police attention;
- a nice Dodge Stratus that is driven by my daughter and is only a few years old and in very good condition, except for the inexplicable make-up smears on the radio dial;
- and an absolute piece-of-crap 2000 beige Chevy Impala, with about 130,000 miles on it and a crack in the windshield that looks like an aerial view of the Snake River. This, of course, is my car.
How did this happen? My son’s car has a sound system that would be the envy of Dr. Dre, and all the Impala has is a radio and a cassette player. They stopped making cassettes about, what, 20 years ago? Do you know how tired I am of listening to sports-talk radio and Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits?
This morning went outside about 6:20 a.m. to discover the Beige Love Machine was covered in permafrost. So I got an empty cassette case, scraped off as much ice as I could, cranked the beast and headed off to work.
I’d gone about 10 miles when it dawned on me that, somehow, the air coming out of the vents was actually colder than the outside temperature. Instead of defrosting my windshield, it was glazing it. Try sticking your head out the window on I-75 so you can see where you’re going on a 30-degree morning. It’s a miracle a truck didn’t swerve into my lane and Ichabod Crane-me. My head was colder than Ted Williams’ when I finally got to work.
Before I got the Impala, I was sporting around town in a 1997 Plymouth mini-van, a chick magnet if there ever was one. But that was like a Lamborghini compared to the AARP-mobile I’m driving around in now.
Why does Dad, the guy who pays for the car insurance and makes sure the oil gets changed and the tires get rotated for everybody, have to drive the worst car? I should be tooling around in style, in some sort of turbo-charged sporty convertible while the rest of them drive Yugos that have to be parked facing downhill in order for them to start. It’s just not fair.
Nobody in the family but me and Lucky will even ride in my car, and even she won’t put her head out the window because she’s embarrassed for other dogs to see her.
Oh, well. Someday, when the house is paid for and I get the kids off the payroll, I’m going to get a nice car for myself, even if I’m too old to drive it. I’ll get something fancy that even has a CD player, and me and Bob Seger will just sit in the driveway and have the times of our lives.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Phoning it in
There’s an exchange on my answering machine between me and my son that we’ve preserved to listen to whenever we want to laugh, or cry, perhaps.
It was one of those cases where I called the house and he didn’t pick up until after the answering machine had kicked on, so the entire conversation was recorded, and it went something like this:
Him: Hello?
Me: Hey. What’s going on?
Him: (uintelligible)
Me: Is your mom home?
Him: No.
Me: Do you know where she went?
Him: (grunt)
Me: Did she say when she was coming back?
Him: No.
Me: Ok, will you please tell her to call me when she gets in?
Him: (garbled):
Click.
I see these TV commercials where they tell us parents we should talk to our kids, and I’m like, YOU come try and talk to them. And bring a teenager-to-English dictionary to translate.
Of course, people under 20 don’t talk on the phone at all anymore. They send text messages with words like “u” and “r” and “l8r” and “idk” which is just a way to confuse us poor helpless parents and trick us into saying yes when they ask us if they can go to a marijuana-sampling party at a friend’s house.
When I was that age (yes, I use this phrase all the time now), it was quite different. We talked on the phone, which was a big old rotary beast that had to be dialed. We made prank calls, like calling the grocery store and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”, and when they said yes, we said “Well, you’d better let him out before he suffocates!” Funny, funny stuff.
I remember my first-ever prank call. I was a little boy, less than 10, and I wanted to call somebody, but I didn’t know anybody’s number. So I just dialed 0, and when the operator picked up, I said, “Go to hell,” then hung up the phone and wondered which one of my friends I would tell first, to impress.
About 5 seconds after I hung up, the phone rang, and a stab of fear went through my body like an errant javelin. I let it ring 4 times, then picked up to hear a woman say, “”Are you the little boy who was playing on the phone?”
“Yes, m’am,” I said in a trembling voice.
“Well, I’m going to call your mother and tell her when she gets home.”
That evil crone at the phone company scared me to death. That night, the next day, and for weeks and months and years after that, I waited for the day when that fateful phone call would be made, and my mother would look at me and say, “Go get me a switch.” But the call never came, which was the genius part of the operator’s diabolical plan. She made sure I lived in fear for my transgression. To this day, I still jump when the phone rings unexpectedly. I really don’t think the punishment fit the crime here.
When I was about 15, my parents moved to a neighboring county. As hard as this may be to believe now, in those days, calls to the next county were long distance, and thus cost more. This was important to me because all of the girls I wanted to woo were in the county I moved from, not the new one. And writing a letter is not a great way to ask a girl out, unless she lives in Russia and you’re planning to buy her.
My parents, after moving me to the wasteland of Lamar County, also informed me that I would have to pay for any long distance calls that I made. This was difficult, as I had no money, and even when I got a job at the age of 16, the little bit of money I had was ticketed for the expenses I would incur if/when I ever persuaded one of these girls to go on a date.
So I had to put some change in my pocket, get into my car and drive across the county line to a quaint little town/convenience store called Orchard Hill, where there was a pay phone. This method of calling girls – which, really, is the only reason a boy, or man for that matter, ever needs to use a telephone – was fraught with pitfalls.
For one, there was no guarantee the pay phone would be available. You couldn’t reserve it, or kick somebody off it. So I was taking a leap of faith just by driving up there.
Then, you could not be assured that the girl you were calling would be home. Most people didn’t have answering machines then, so you couldn’t leave a message. I would just stand there forlornly and listen to the ring, ring, ring, hoping maybe she was just in the shower or outside and would soon hear the phone ringing and rush in and pick it up breathlessly and – but that never happened. Instead, I’d just hang up and decide whether to try again.
Then there was the dreaded busy signal. This was worse than no answer, because now you knew she was probably at home, and talking to some skunk who you thought was your best friend, but who had been lucky enough to call her before you did, and was monopolizing the durn phone, and probably asking her out! (Do I still seem angry?) In truth, it was generally just her mom on the phone, or her sister, and I would get angry and have fantasies about purchasing a handgun and shooting my former best friend for nothing.
Of course, there was no call waiting or caller ID then, so if you got a busy signal, you got a busy signal. You could, in case of emergencies, have the operator break into a call, but that seemed a bit extreme for a 16-year-old boy trying to get a date. Then again, when you think about the raging hormones at that age, maybe it did qualify as an emergency.
My pay phone of choice was unfortunately located next to a train track. A roaring locomotive 10 feet away puts quite a damper on a conversation. I’d hear that train a’comin’, and I’d either hurry up and say what I was going to say - “HeywillyougooutwithmeSaturdaynight?” – or I’d ask her to hang on and wait for the train to pass. Inevitably, she’d have hung up by the time it got quiet again, having decided she didn’t want to go on a date with a loser who asked her out from a pay phone.
I guess it is easier to ask girls out these days, but then it’s probably easier for them so say no, too. So maybe the good old days had their selling points, after all.
It was one of those cases where I called the house and he didn’t pick up until after the answering machine had kicked on, so the entire conversation was recorded, and it went something like this:
Him: Hello?
Me: Hey. What’s going on?
Him: (uintelligible)
Me: Is your mom home?
Him: No.
Me: Do you know where she went?
Him: (grunt)
Me: Did she say when she was coming back?
Him: No.
Me: Ok, will you please tell her to call me when she gets in?
Him: (garbled):
Click.
I see these TV commercials where they tell us parents we should talk to our kids, and I’m like, YOU come try and talk to them. And bring a teenager-to-English dictionary to translate.
Of course, people under 20 don’t talk on the phone at all anymore. They send text messages with words like “u” and “r” and “l8r” and “idk” which is just a way to confuse us poor helpless parents and trick us into saying yes when they ask us if they can go to a marijuana-sampling party at a friend’s house.
When I was that age (yes, I use this phrase all the time now), it was quite different. We talked on the phone, which was a big old rotary beast that had to be dialed. We made prank calls, like calling the grocery store and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”, and when they said yes, we said “Well, you’d better let him out before he suffocates!” Funny, funny stuff.
I remember my first-ever prank call. I was a little boy, less than 10, and I wanted to call somebody, but I didn’t know anybody’s number. So I just dialed 0, and when the operator picked up, I said, “Go to hell,” then hung up the phone and wondered which one of my friends I would tell first, to impress.
About 5 seconds after I hung up, the phone rang, and a stab of fear went through my body like an errant javelin. I let it ring 4 times, then picked up to hear a woman say, “”Are you the little boy who was playing on the phone?”
“Yes, m’am,” I said in a trembling voice.
“Well, I’m going to call your mother and tell her when she gets home.”
That evil crone at the phone company scared me to death. That night, the next day, and for weeks and months and years after that, I waited for the day when that fateful phone call would be made, and my mother would look at me and say, “Go get me a switch.” But the call never came, which was the genius part of the operator’s diabolical plan. She made sure I lived in fear for my transgression. To this day, I still jump when the phone rings unexpectedly. I really don’t think the punishment fit the crime here.
When I was about 15, my parents moved to a neighboring county. As hard as this may be to believe now, in those days, calls to the next county were long distance, and thus cost more. This was important to me because all of the girls I wanted to woo were in the county I moved from, not the new one. And writing a letter is not a great way to ask a girl out, unless she lives in Russia and you’re planning to buy her.
My parents, after moving me to the wasteland of Lamar County, also informed me that I would have to pay for any long distance calls that I made. This was difficult, as I had no money, and even when I got a job at the age of 16, the little bit of money I had was ticketed for the expenses I would incur if/when I ever persuaded one of these girls to go on a date.
So I had to put some change in my pocket, get into my car and drive across the county line to a quaint little town/convenience store called Orchard Hill, where there was a pay phone. This method of calling girls – which, really, is the only reason a boy, or man for that matter, ever needs to use a telephone – was fraught with pitfalls.
For one, there was no guarantee the pay phone would be available. You couldn’t reserve it, or kick somebody off it. So I was taking a leap of faith just by driving up there.
Then, you could not be assured that the girl you were calling would be home. Most people didn’t have answering machines then, so you couldn’t leave a message. I would just stand there forlornly and listen to the ring, ring, ring, hoping maybe she was just in the shower or outside and would soon hear the phone ringing and rush in and pick it up breathlessly and – but that never happened. Instead, I’d just hang up and decide whether to try again.
Then there was the dreaded busy signal. This was worse than no answer, because now you knew she was probably at home, and talking to some skunk who you thought was your best friend, but who had been lucky enough to call her before you did, and was monopolizing the durn phone, and probably asking her out! (Do I still seem angry?) In truth, it was generally just her mom on the phone, or her sister, and I would get angry and have fantasies about purchasing a handgun and shooting my former best friend for nothing.
Of course, there was no call waiting or caller ID then, so if you got a busy signal, you got a busy signal. You could, in case of emergencies, have the operator break into a call, but that seemed a bit extreme for a 16-year-old boy trying to get a date. Then again, when you think about the raging hormones at that age, maybe it did qualify as an emergency.
My pay phone of choice was unfortunately located next to a train track. A roaring locomotive 10 feet away puts quite a damper on a conversation. I’d hear that train a’comin’, and I’d either hurry up and say what I was going to say - “HeywillyougooutwithmeSaturdaynight?” – or I’d ask her to hang on and wait for the train to pass. Inevitably, she’d have hung up by the time it got quiet again, having decided she didn’t want to go on a date with a loser who asked her out from a pay phone.
I guess it is easier to ask girls out these days, but then it’s probably easier for them so say no, too. So maybe the good old days had their selling points, after all.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The heat is on
A terrible calamity struck my house this week – the air conditioning went on the fritz.
Since my house was apparently built by the first little pig, I’ve gotten used to having an annual major repair. Toilets, floors, walls, appliances, siding – I need an Obama stimulus package to take care of everything that needs attention around there.
But some repairs can’t wait, and a non-performing AC unit is at the top of that list. It’s not the first problem we’ve had with it, and my daughter asked me the other day why it always seems to quit working when it’s hot.
“Because, dear,” I said, remembering that I’m paying for her to go to college, “that’s when we use it. When it’s hot.”
My wife informed me that not having a working AC unit is a hardship on her, because it makes her hair frizz. My son hasn’t really complained, because he’s 17 years old and doesn’t talk to us except in case of emergency. The dog has said nothing, but she lives outside and isn’t really affected.
Anyway, I called a repairman, and for the price of a small Volkswagen, it is going to be repaired, and peace will again descend upon my household. The whole episode has served to remind me how spoiled we’ve all become.
Of course, when I was a boy, we didn’t live in 72-degree comfort from June through September. We didn’t have central air conditioning in our ranch-style house, just a couple of window units that rattled like a 747 on takeoff, and made about as much noise. These only ran at certain times - for example, when my father was at home.
Rooms that were deemed unnecessary to cool – i.e., my bedroom – were cut off from the cool air via a closed door. When I’d step from my bedroom into the hall, it was about a 20-degree temperature drop. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of pneumonia at the age of 10.
At night, the air conditioning was turned off completely, so I slept with the windows open on summer evenings. I could hear the chirp of crickets, the croak of bullfrogs, the far-off whistle of the train, and occasional arguments from the next-door neighbors. I learned some new curse words through that open window.
When I was about 15, we moved to a house that had central air conditioning, which would have been great had we ever used it. Instead, my dad installed a ceiling fan, which circulated air throughout the house. That sounds good in theory, but 85-degree air wafting over you at night is not terribly comfortable.
No, if you wanted to get cool in that house, you just had to wait for the winter. The house also had central heat, but he preferred to use a wood-burning stove. That thing required wood, which had to be chopped into smaller pieces, then stacked, then brought into the house. Who is going to do that, I asked my dad, and he responded by smiling and handing me an axe.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “What am I, Davy Crockett?”
OK, I didn’t really say that, I just thought it to myself. I learned how to chop, stack and carry wood, all while repeating the curse words I’d learned through the open window at my old house.
The wood-burning stove was something. If you were within, say, 10 feet of it, it was as warm as Lucifer’s kitchen. Again, my dad would close off the bedrooms, so none of that warmth reached me at night. Walking through that house in the winter was like going to visit the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser every day (that joke was for fans of The Year Without a Santa Claus).
After I moved out on my own, I couldn't help but notice when I came back to visit that my dad had at last embraced the notions of central heating and air, and the house was always at a nice, comfortable temperature. I guess he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t spoiled.
Since my house was apparently built by the first little pig, I’ve gotten used to having an annual major repair. Toilets, floors, walls, appliances, siding – I need an Obama stimulus package to take care of everything that needs attention around there.
But some repairs can’t wait, and a non-performing AC unit is at the top of that list. It’s not the first problem we’ve had with it, and my daughter asked me the other day why it always seems to quit working when it’s hot.
“Because, dear,” I said, remembering that I’m paying for her to go to college, “that’s when we use it. When it’s hot.”
My wife informed me that not having a working AC unit is a hardship on her, because it makes her hair frizz. My son hasn’t really complained, because he’s 17 years old and doesn’t talk to us except in case of emergency. The dog has said nothing, but she lives outside and isn’t really affected.
Anyway, I called a repairman, and for the price of a small Volkswagen, it is going to be repaired, and peace will again descend upon my household. The whole episode has served to remind me how spoiled we’ve all become.
Of course, when I was a boy, we didn’t live in 72-degree comfort from June through September. We didn’t have central air conditioning in our ranch-style house, just a couple of window units that rattled like a 747 on takeoff, and made about as much noise. These only ran at certain times - for example, when my father was at home.
Rooms that were deemed unnecessary to cool – i.e., my bedroom – were cut off from the cool air via a closed door. When I’d step from my bedroom into the hall, it was about a 20-degree temperature drop. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of pneumonia at the age of 10.
At night, the air conditioning was turned off completely, so I slept with the windows open on summer evenings. I could hear the chirp of crickets, the croak of bullfrogs, the far-off whistle of the train, and occasional arguments from the next-door neighbors. I learned some new curse words through that open window.
When I was about 15, we moved to a house that had central air conditioning, which would have been great had we ever used it. Instead, my dad installed a ceiling fan, which circulated air throughout the house. That sounds good in theory, but 85-degree air wafting over you at night is not terribly comfortable.
No, if you wanted to get cool in that house, you just had to wait for the winter. The house also had central heat, but he preferred to use a wood-burning stove. That thing required wood, which had to be chopped into smaller pieces, then stacked, then brought into the house. Who is going to do that, I asked my dad, and he responded by smiling and handing me an axe.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “What am I, Davy Crockett?”
OK, I didn’t really say that, I just thought it to myself. I learned how to chop, stack and carry wood, all while repeating the curse words I’d learned through the open window at my old house.
The wood-burning stove was something. If you were within, say, 10 feet of it, it was as warm as Lucifer’s kitchen. Again, my dad would close off the bedrooms, so none of that warmth reached me at night. Walking through that house in the winter was like going to visit the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser every day (that joke was for fans of The Year Without a Santa Claus).
After I moved out on my own, I couldn't help but notice when I came back to visit that my dad had at last embraced the notions of central heating and air, and the house was always at a nice, comfortable temperature. I guess he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t spoiled.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Kind of Blue
I have been accused in my day of not really noticing or appreciating things my wife Susan does to decorate our house.
I have to say, guilty as charged. About the only things I pay much attention to inside the house are the TV, my recliner and the contents of the refrigerator. As far as the rest of it goes, I may as well live in an Army barracks.
I tried to correct that once years ago, when she was a little frustrated after she had done some decorating and rearranging and I hadn’t noticed it. So one night I was sitting there on the couch, and I said, “You know, I like this lamp.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, I think it looks nice in here. I’m glad you got it. When did you get it?”
“About five years ago,” she said.
Oh, well. I tried.
One problem is, women love to watch all of those crazy home decorating and renovation shows that come on TV. They watch these shows and then they get the urge to go do some of that stuff themselves. I tried suggesting she watch a cooking show instead, but all I got was a dirty look.
The other day, riding in the car, she informed me that she had decided she wanted to paint the kitchen. I didn’t understand why. Didn’t we just paint it? I asked her.
“We painted it 10 years ago,” she said.
“Exactly!” I said. “It seems like just yesterday. Plus, I like it the color that it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “What color is it?”
I wasn’t sure, so I muttered something under my breath, turned up and radio loud and swerved the car violently, pretending a squirrel had run out in front of me, all in an effort to change the subject. Of course, she didn’t buy that, because she knows I hate squirrels, and am more likely to drive on up the sidewalk to run one over than I am to swerve to miss one.
Fine. So I didn’t know, from memory, the color of the kitchen. Knowing when I’m beaten, I gave in and said, sure, I think it would be a great idea for you to paint the kitchen, with an emphasis on the word “you”, cause I ain’t painting nothing!
This set off about a two-week quest to find the right color. She was going with blue, but apparently, there are about 967 different variations of blue paint available at Home Depot. She began to buy samples of the various blues, then would paint a small section of the wall to see if she liked it. Invariably, her initial reaction was to hate it; then, after a few hours, she’d decide she liked it; then she’d come around to hating it again. After a few days, there were so many different colors on our kitchen wall, it looked like the Partridge Family bus.
On about the 20th try, she called me in the kitchen, pointed out a new swath of color and said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think you need to be on Prozac. Just pick a color!”
One angry look later, she had decided on a color. It was blue. I thought it looked great. She hired some guy named Luis to come over and paint my kitchen. He had a puzzled look on his face when he walked in and saw the kaleidoscope of colors on the wall, but I just said to him, “Don’t ask, por favor.” He nodded and went to work.
Now, here’s a trick that women used that I’ve learned about. Basically, I look at home renovations in one way – how much is it going to cost? The price of painting the kitchen, and also the downstairs bathroom, seemed pretty reasonable to me, so I didn’t’ squawk much. But then, she hits you with the sucker punch – now that the room has changed color, everything else in there has to be replaced!
“I need some curtains for the kitchen,” she told me before the paint even dried. Why, I said. “Because, obviously, dummy, the green ones we have don’t match the blue walls now.” And she’s also commenced to buying new accessories for the bathroom, since it changed from whatever color it was before to blue, as well. I’ve hardly seen a woman as excited as she was the other day when she found a blue soap dispenser in Big Lots.
Hopefully, we’re through with the redecorating process for at least a few weeks. Now I can concentrate on the important stuff in the kitchen and bathroom, like leftovers and cold beverages and a stack of National Geographic magazines. I’ll let you figure out what belongs in which room.
I have to say, guilty as charged. About the only things I pay much attention to inside the house are the TV, my recliner and the contents of the refrigerator. As far as the rest of it goes, I may as well live in an Army barracks.
I tried to correct that once years ago, when she was a little frustrated after she had done some decorating and rearranging and I hadn’t noticed it. So one night I was sitting there on the couch, and I said, “You know, I like this lamp.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, I think it looks nice in here. I’m glad you got it. When did you get it?”
“About five years ago,” she said.
Oh, well. I tried.
One problem is, women love to watch all of those crazy home decorating and renovation shows that come on TV. They watch these shows and then they get the urge to go do some of that stuff themselves. I tried suggesting she watch a cooking show instead, but all I got was a dirty look.
The other day, riding in the car, she informed me that she had decided she wanted to paint the kitchen. I didn’t understand why. Didn’t we just paint it? I asked her.
“We painted it 10 years ago,” she said.
“Exactly!” I said. “It seems like just yesterday. Plus, I like it the color that it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “What color is it?”
I wasn’t sure, so I muttered something under my breath, turned up and radio loud and swerved the car violently, pretending a squirrel had run out in front of me, all in an effort to change the subject. Of course, she didn’t buy that, because she knows I hate squirrels, and am more likely to drive on up the sidewalk to run one over than I am to swerve to miss one.
Fine. So I didn’t know, from memory, the color of the kitchen. Knowing when I’m beaten, I gave in and said, sure, I think it would be a great idea for you to paint the kitchen, with an emphasis on the word “you”, cause I ain’t painting nothing!
This set off about a two-week quest to find the right color. She was going with blue, but apparently, there are about 967 different variations of blue paint available at Home Depot. She began to buy samples of the various blues, then would paint a small section of the wall to see if she liked it. Invariably, her initial reaction was to hate it; then, after a few hours, she’d decide she liked it; then she’d come around to hating it again. After a few days, there were so many different colors on our kitchen wall, it looked like the Partridge Family bus.
On about the 20th try, she called me in the kitchen, pointed out a new swath of color and said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think you need to be on Prozac. Just pick a color!”
One angry look later, she had decided on a color. It was blue. I thought it looked great. She hired some guy named Luis to come over and paint my kitchen. He had a puzzled look on his face when he walked in and saw the kaleidoscope of colors on the wall, but I just said to him, “Don’t ask, por favor.” He nodded and went to work.
Now, here’s a trick that women used that I’ve learned about. Basically, I look at home renovations in one way – how much is it going to cost? The price of painting the kitchen, and also the downstairs bathroom, seemed pretty reasonable to me, so I didn’t’ squawk much. But then, she hits you with the sucker punch – now that the room has changed color, everything else in there has to be replaced!
“I need some curtains for the kitchen,” she told me before the paint even dried. Why, I said. “Because, obviously, dummy, the green ones we have don’t match the blue walls now.” And she’s also commenced to buying new accessories for the bathroom, since it changed from whatever color it was before to blue, as well. I’ve hardly seen a woman as excited as she was the other day when she found a blue soap dispenser in Big Lots.
Hopefully, we’re through with the redecorating process for at least a few weeks. Now I can concentrate on the important stuff in the kitchen and bathroom, like leftovers and cold beverages and a stack of National Geographic magazines. I’ll let you figure out what belongs in which room.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
How to talk to women
As a man who has lived a lot of years, and most of them in the same house as a woman, I’ve gained a lot of wisdom, and I feel the need to impart some of it to the less-experienced among us.
Here’s the deal. In order to get along with women, you have to talk to them. They like that. They’re not like us. They can’t watch a four-hour football game during which the longest sentence uttered is, “Pass the Doritos.” They enjoy talking, which is ok, but they also expect to be listened to, which is hard, and they expect you to talk back to them, which can often just be impossible.
Why is this? Well, for one thing, they often are not talking about what you think they are talking about. If they tell you that the weather is going to be nice this weekend, it’s not an encouragement for you to go play golf. It’s a subtle reminder that you promised to clean the gutters.
If they are being quiet, and you ask them what is wrong, they usually will say, “nothing.” They don’t mean this. What they mean is, “If you really loved me, you’d know what was wrong with me, and you’d fix it, without me having to tell you.” Even if there is no way in the world you could know what is wrong with them, you are expected to know. Then you have to apologize for not knowing.
I’m going to outline a few situations that men might find themselves in with women, and I’m going to give you the correct, and the incorrect, response to each of them.
Situation: She walks in the room, stands in front of you and says, “Does my butt look big in these pants?”
Right response: No, honey, of course not. Your butt is not big.
Wrong response: No bigger than usual.
Situation: She goes to get her hair done, and she comes home angry, complaining that it looks terrible and the hairdresser did not do what she asked her to.
Right response: I think it looks good. It actually makes you look younger. You’re just not used to it yet.
Wrong response: Why don’t you go see if the hairdresser will give you your money back?
Situation: She says, “It’s really warm in here. I’m burning up.”
Right response: Ok, do you want to me open a window, or maybe adjust the thermostat?
Wrong response: Yeah, I read the other day that you’re at about the age when hot flashes begin. It will pass.
Situation: She walks into the bedroom wearing a new nightgown and says, “Look what I bought the other day.”
Right response: Wow, that looks really great on you, honey. You know red is my favorite color.
Wrong response: Oh my God, how much did THAT cost?
Situation: She decides to try a new recipe, then asks you at the table what you think of the meal.
Right response: It’s pretty good. I never even thought putting cinnamon on spaghetti would be good, but this is great.
Wrong response: Do you think Domino’s is still open?
Often, the way to handle these situations is to realize that you’re not going to win no matter what you do, so you should just pretend you didn’t hear her. Then if she presses you on it, just say, “I’m sorry, honey, I was thinking about where I could take you for dinner Saturday night. You really deserve a night out. Now, what did you say?” If you’re lucky, she’ll let it drop, and if you’re really lucky, she’ll forget you promised to take her to dinner. Just make sure you have the number to Domino’s handy.
Here’s the deal. In order to get along with women, you have to talk to them. They like that. They’re not like us. They can’t watch a four-hour football game during which the longest sentence uttered is, “Pass the Doritos.” They enjoy talking, which is ok, but they also expect to be listened to, which is hard, and they expect you to talk back to them, which can often just be impossible.
Why is this? Well, for one thing, they often are not talking about what you think they are talking about. If they tell you that the weather is going to be nice this weekend, it’s not an encouragement for you to go play golf. It’s a subtle reminder that you promised to clean the gutters.
If they are being quiet, and you ask them what is wrong, they usually will say, “nothing.” They don’t mean this. What they mean is, “If you really loved me, you’d know what was wrong with me, and you’d fix it, without me having to tell you.” Even if there is no way in the world you could know what is wrong with them, you are expected to know. Then you have to apologize for not knowing.
I’m going to outline a few situations that men might find themselves in with women, and I’m going to give you the correct, and the incorrect, response to each of them.
Situation: She walks in the room, stands in front of you and says, “Does my butt look big in these pants?”
Right response: No, honey, of course not. Your butt is not big.
Wrong response: No bigger than usual.
Situation: She goes to get her hair done, and she comes home angry, complaining that it looks terrible and the hairdresser did not do what she asked her to.
Right response: I think it looks good. It actually makes you look younger. You’re just not used to it yet.
Wrong response: Why don’t you go see if the hairdresser will give you your money back?
Situation: She says, “It’s really warm in here. I’m burning up.”
Right response: Ok, do you want to me open a window, or maybe adjust the thermostat?
Wrong response: Yeah, I read the other day that you’re at about the age when hot flashes begin. It will pass.
Situation: She walks into the bedroom wearing a new nightgown and says, “Look what I bought the other day.”
Right response: Wow, that looks really great on you, honey. You know red is my favorite color.
Wrong response: Oh my God, how much did THAT cost?
Situation: She decides to try a new recipe, then asks you at the table what you think of the meal.
Right response: It’s pretty good. I never even thought putting cinnamon on spaghetti would be good, but this is great.
Wrong response: Do you think Domino’s is still open?
Often, the way to handle these situations is to realize that you’re not going to win no matter what you do, so you should just pretend you didn’t hear her. Then if she presses you on it, just say, “I’m sorry, honey, I was thinking about where I could take you for dinner Saturday night. You really deserve a night out. Now, what did you say?” If you’re lucky, she’ll let it drop, and if you’re really lucky, she’ll forget you promised to take her to dinner. Just make sure you have the number to Domino’s handy.
Monday, February 28, 2011
King of the court
My 17-year-old son David innocently asked me if I wanted to go to the basketball court with him Sunday. Since he’s at that cute age where he rarely speaks a sentence to me that doesn’t begin with the words, “Can I have..”, I said sure.
I warned him, though, that I was not going to play him in an actual game. I’m too out of shape for that foolishness. I might hurt myself or, in a much worse outcome, I might actually lose.
He’s been trying to bait me into a basketball game for some time. The other day he was trash-talking and I said, “Have you forgotten who won the last time we played? That’s right, it was me.”
He responded by reminding me that it was three years ago when that happened, when he was still in the eighth grade. Oh, big deal. Like there’s much difference between an eighth-grader and an 11th-grader. I mean, I haven’ t changed that much in three years, so what makes him think he has?
Anyway, we got to the court, and we started shooting, and I realized the little booger knew what he was doing. He knew there was no way I was going to let him stand unchallenged on the court. Finally I said, “Ok, I’ll run you a quick one. Let’s play to seven.”
No, he said, we always play to 12. Fine, I said, knowing I couldn’t back down. If you show weakness to these urchins, they’ll kill you in your sleep and steal your debit card. So I agreed to play to 12, which in retrospect, was a poor decision.
The game started out calmly enough. I drained a couple of jumpers, he made a layup here and there. By the time the score was 3-1, there had already been three timeouts for injury. It may surprise you to know that two of those times, he was the one who got hurt. He kept foolishly running into my elbow.
The other time, I jammed my fingers quite badly when I reached for the ball and accidentally hit his hard head. As evidence, my middle finger on my right hand is swollen to the size of a bratwurst and is turning black. Having a middle finger out of commission severely hampered my morning commute. But I stayed tough, and took a 7-4 lead, and would have at that point been the winner had I stuck to my original plan.
Then, he began to catch up, and I began to move a little more slowly. I was going to my left with all the quickness of a sea turtle on Quaaludes. After he tied the game at 7-7, I looked up and saw my wife drive up in her car. She had come to watch the fun. Trust me, I had no illusions about who she was pulling for.
It’s a good thing she showed up when she did, because it gave us an excuse to stop the game for a few minutes, and I was about 5 seconds away from a cardiac event.
“How are you doing?” she said, and I told her that I was doing just fine, but it might not be a bad idea to dial 9-1-1 on her phone and have her finger hover above the “send” button, just in case. She smiled, told me that she had faith in me, and asked me where the life insurance policies were.
The game resumed and, as you can surmise, what with my concentration thrown off and my finger hurting and the fact that the baskets were 3 inches higher than regulation, not to mention it was really a bad biorhythm day for me and my astrological signs were lined up poorly – well, I lost.
Don’t worry, though, I handled it maturely. I congratulated him, and secretly vowed to work over the next few weeks to get ready for a rematch. I’ve hired Larry Bird as my shooting coach, I’m doing conditioning work with Lance Armstrong, and I’ve begun taking steroids. If all that fails, I’ll remind him of all the times I let him win when he was younger. I’m not above accepting charity.
I warned him, though, that I was not going to play him in an actual game. I’m too out of shape for that foolishness. I might hurt myself or, in a much worse outcome, I might actually lose.
He’s been trying to bait me into a basketball game for some time. The other day he was trash-talking and I said, “Have you forgotten who won the last time we played? That’s right, it was me.”
He responded by reminding me that it was three years ago when that happened, when he was still in the eighth grade. Oh, big deal. Like there’s much difference between an eighth-grader and an 11th-grader. I mean, I haven’ t changed that much in three years, so what makes him think he has?
Anyway, we got to the court, and we started shooting, and I realized the little booger knew what he was doing. He knew there was no way I was going to let him stand unchallenged on the court. Finally I said, “Ok, I’ll run you a quick one. Let’s play to seven.”
No, he said, we always play to 12. Fine, I said, knowing I couldn’t back down. If you show weakness to these urchins, they’ll kill you in your sleep and steal your debit card. So I agreed to play to 12, which in retrospect, was a poor decision.
The game started out calmly enough. I drained a couple of jumpers, he made a layup here and there. By the time the score was 3-1, there had already been three timeouts for injury. It may surprise you to know that two of those times, he was the one who got hurt. He kept foolishly running into my elbow.
The other time, I jammed my fingers quite badly when I reached for the ball and accidentally hit his hard head. As evidence, my middle finger on my right hand is swollen to the size of a bratwurst and is turning black. Having a middle finger out of commission severely hampered my morning commute. But I stayed tough, and took a 7-4 lead, and would have at that point been the winner had I stuck to my original plan.
Then, he began to catch up, and I began to move a little more slowly. I was going to my left with all the quickness of a sea turtle on Quaaludes. After he tied the game at 7-7, I looked up and saw my wife drive up in her car. She had come to watch the fun. Trust me, I had no illusions about who she was pulling for.
It’s a good thing she showed up when she did, because it gave us an excuse to stop the game for a few minutes, and I was about 5 seconds away from a cardiac event.
“How are you doing?” she said, and I told her that I was doing just fine, but it might not be a bad idea to dial 9-1-1 on her phone and have her finger hover above the “send” button, just in case. She smiled, told me that she had faith in me, and asked me where the life insurance policies were.
The game resumed and, as you can surmise, what with my concentration thrown off and my finger hurting and the fact that the baskets were 3 inches higher than regulation, not to mention it was really a bad biorhythm day for me and my astrological signs were lined up poorly – well, I lost.
Don’t worry, though, I handled it maturely. I congratulated him, and secretly vowed to work over the next few weeks to get ready for a rematch. I’ve hired Larry Bird as my shooting coach, I’m doing conditioning work with Lance Armstrong, and I’ve begun taking steroids. If all that fails, I’ll remind him of all the times I let him win when he was younger. I’m not above accepting charity.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
I watched the Super Bowl Sunday, because I am a red-blooded American man and it is required behavior, like spitting in the sink or drinking straight from the orange juice carton.
I watched it at home, with my son and my dog. None of us cared that much about the game, since we’d hoped the Falcons would make it, but I guess I pulled for the Packers, and my son was for the Steelers. The dog didn’t state a preference.
My daughter was in Athens, studying, I’m sure, because that’s what college students do all weekend. And my wife was upstairs doing something else because, let’s face it, I was watching football, and that’s no place for a woman.
Don’t get me wrong. I like watching football, and I like women. I just don’t like watching football with women.
I don’t much go got football-watching parties, because these usually involve women who are allegedly watching the game, but are really there just to talk. I know, I know, there are some exceptions out there, women who actually are interested in the game and know what’s going on. But I think that’s probably a pretty low percentage, and why take the chance?
My wife will occasionally come into the room with me as I’m watching football, which is fine, except she tries to talk to me, because women think that you are supposed to communicate with your spouse, which is of course crazy talk.
She’ll try one of two tactics in her attempts to talk to me during football. First, she’ll talk about things having nothing to do with the game, like what needs fixing around the house, or how much money the kids need for something, or a story about somebody she knows who caught her husband with a dental hygienist and wants to leave him except they just spent $10,000 on in-vitro fertilization and she hopes she’s pregnant.
She soon learns that this is getting nowhere, as my only response is a grunt before I scream “Screen pass? Who is going to be fooled by a screen pass on third-and-20????”
Her second method is to try to make comments on the actual, game and this is disastrous, because the comments are not appropriate. It’s usually stuff like, “Why are they wearing that color jersey with those pants?” or “Look how long his hair is!” or “Why is he grabbing himself there?”
“Listen,” I told her the last time she tried this, “I appreciate the effort. But all I really want to hear you say when I’m watching football is, “Do you need another beer, honey?’ “ That led to a rough afternoon. Who knew divorce attorneys worked on Sundays?
My daughter is actually a pretty good football watcher, but that’s because I trained her from birth. But her mother just wasn’t trained right, and it’s too late now. It’s why we’ve had two TVs since the day we were married.
I’ve changed my football-watching behavior during the years as I’ve aged and mellowed and my home insurance premiums have gone up. I closely follow two teams – the Falcons and the Georgia Bulldogs –and I used to get quite animated during games, and perhaps would toss a few things around harmlessly. OK, I’ll be honest – I’ve thrown some fits while watching games that would cause Charlie Sheen to tell me, “Whoa, dude. Calm down.”
Now, when things are going poorly for the Bulldogs – which occurred in several games this year immediately after the coin toss – I just get quiet and watch stone-faced, and remind myself that there are people suffering in the world and war and famine and I shouldn’t get upset just because somebody FUMBLED ON THE 1-YARD LINE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????
OK, maybe I still need some work, and maybe I’m a little bit sexist (I can hear my wife saying, “a little bit????”), but I’m a work in progress. Football is over for a few months, and now I have a lot of time to hear about what needs fixing and who’s pregnant, and I promise I’ll at least pretend to be listening.
I watched it at home, with my son and my dog. None of us cared that much about the game, since we’d hoped the Falcons would make it, but I guess I pulled for the Packers, and my son was for the Steelers. The dog didn’t state a preference.
My daughter was in Athens, studying, I’m sure, because that’s what college students do all weekend. And my wife was upstairs doing something else because, let’s face it, I was watching football, and that’s no place for a woman.
Don’t get me wrong. I like watching football, and I like women. I just don’t like watching football with women.
I don’t much go got football-watching parties, because these usually involve women who are allegedly watching the game, but are really there just to talk. I know, I know, there are some exceptions out there, women who actually are interested in the game and know what’s going on. But I think that’s probably a pretty low percentage, and why take the chance?
My wife will occasionally come into the room with me as I’m watching football, which is fine, except she tries to talk to me, because women think that you are supposed to communicate with your spouse, which is of course crazy talk.
She’ll try one of two tactics in her attempts to talk to me during football. First, she’ll talk about things having nothing to do with the game, like what needs fixing around the house, or how much money the kids need for something, or a story about somebody she knows who caught her husband with a dental hygienist and wants to leave him except they just spent $10,000 on in-vitro fertilization and she hopes she’s pregnant.
She soon learns that this is getting nowhere, as my only response is a grunt before I scream “Screen pass? Who is going to be fooled by a screen pass on third-and-20????”
Her second method is to try to make comments on the actual, game and this is disastrous, because the comments are not appropriate. It’s usually stuff like, “Why are they wearing that color jersey with those pants?” or “Look how long his hair is!” or “Why is he grabbing himself there?”
“Listen,” I told her the last time she tried this, “I appreciate the effort. But all I really want to hear you say when I’m watching football is, “Do you need another beer, honey?’ “ That led to a rough afternoon. Who knew divorce attorneys worked on Sundays?
My daughter is actually a pretty good football watcher, but that’s because I trained her from birth. But her mother just wasn’t trained right, and it’s too late now. It’s why we’ve had two TVs since the day we were married.
I’ve changed my football-watching behavior during the years as I’ve aged and mellowed and my home insurance premiums have gone up. I closely follow two teams – the Falcons and the Georgia Bulldogs –and I used to get quite animated during games, and perhaps would toss a few things around harmlessly. OK, I’ll be honest – I’ve thrown some fits while watching games that would cause Charlie Sheen to tell me, “Whoa, dude. Calm down.”
Now, when things are going poorly for the Bulldogs – which occurred in several games this year immediately after the coin toss – I just get quiet and watch stone-faced, and remind myself that there are people suffering in the world and war and famine and I shouldn’t get upset just because somebody FUMBLED ON THE 1-YARD LINE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????
OK, maybe I still need some work, and maybe I’m a little bit sexist (I can hear my wife saying, “a little bit????”), but I’m a work in progress. Football is over for a few months, and now I have a lot of time to hear about what needs fixing and who’s pregnant, and I promise I’ll at least pretend to be listening.
Friday, January 7, 2011
What's on TV?
I have satellite TV, and we’ve ordered the “Deluxe Jumbo 5,000 Channels of Crap” package, so I have an endless possibility of things to watch, all the while saying “I can’t believe I’m watching this.”
My wife and I often watch separate TVs, since she likes shows like “I had a 200-pound Tumor”, or reality shows about people who have 30 kids in their house, or shows where some Yuppie couple in San Jose spends three weeks deciding how to redo their kitchen floor. Meanwhile, I’m downstairs watching sports, or cool shows on Spike, like “1,000 Ways to Die.”
Have you seen that show? It depicts all sorts of crazy ways that people have died over the years – exploding toilets, a turtle dropped on a guy’s head by an eagle, a skateboarder passing out facedown in wet cement – with graphic re-creations. I can’t understand for the life of me why women don’t enjoy this show.
The truth is, I have the TV on a lot, but I don’t really watch it that much. I am thrilled that IFC is now showing “The Larry Sanders Show,” which is the best show in the history of television. But other than that, pickings are slim.
The other night I was sitting on the couch, flipping through one of the many HBO channels that I overpay for, and I saw that the movie “Up” was coming on. Well, I’d never seen it, and I thought, I’ll give it a try. I’d read good reviews, and it looked like a delightful animated adventure. My daughter said she’d watch part of it with me.
Have you seen this movie? For the first 20 minutes, I had to pretend that my cold was acting up so my daughter wouldn’t ask me why I was getting teary-eyed and sniffling from watching a cartoon. I haven’t been that emotional watching a movie since (Spoiler Alert!) Old Yeller got a bullet in his brain.
At least it was a pretty good movie. One good thing about my children growing up is I don’t have to sit through awful kids’ movies and TV shows any more. There was a point in my life when just seeing something purple could turn me homicidal, all thanks to Barney the Dinosaur. I used to daydream about driving to California and strangling that little guy on “Blue’s Clues” with my bare hands.
Now, my children watch wonderful shows like “Jersey Shore.” I wouldn’t watch that show unless I was wearing a haz-mat suit. You could probably get an STD if you watched that show on one of those new 3-D TVs. If aliens land on Earth and see that show, they’ll immediately incinerate us all, because they’ll think there’s no hope for humanity. A purple Barney was pretty bad, but an orange “Snooki” is too much to bear.
I suppose I could do something productive instead of just sitting on the couch in front of the TV set. I could, but I’m not. It’s cold outside, it gets dark at 5:30, and by the time I get home from work, my brain needs rest, not stimulation. Hopefully there’s a good bowl game on tonight.
My wife and I often watch separate TVs, since she likes shows like “I had a 200-pound Tumor”, or reality shows about people who have 30 kids in their house, or shows where some Yuppie couple in San Jose spends three weeks deciding how to redo their kitchen floor. Meanwhile, I’m downstairs watching sports, or cool shows on Spike, like “1,000 Ways to Die.”
Have you seen that show? It depicts all sorts of crazy ways that people have died over the years – exploding toilets, a turtle dropped on a guy’s head by an eagle, a skateboarder passing out facedown in wet cement – with graphic re-creations. I can’t understand for the life of me why women don’t enjoy this show.
The truth is, I have the TV on a lot, but I don’t really watch it that much. I am thrilled that IFC is now showing “The Larry Sanders Show,” which is the best show in the history of television. But other than that, pickings are slim.
The other night I was sitting on the couch, flipping through one of the many HBO channels that I overpay for, and I saw that the movie “Up” was coming on. Well, I’d never seen it, and I thought, I’ll give it a try. I’d read good reviews, and it looked like a delightful animated adventure. My daughter said she’d watch part of it with me.
Have you seen this movie? For the first 20 minutes, I had to pretend that my cold was acting up so my daughter wouldn’t ask me why I was getting teary-eyed and sniffling from watching a cartoon. I haven’t been that emotional watching a movie since (Spoiler Alert!) Old Yeller got a bullet in his brain.
At least it was a pretty good movie. One good thing about my children growing up is I don’t have to sit through awful kids’ movies and TV shows any more. There was a point in my life when just seeing something purple could turn me homicidal, all thanks to Barney the Dinosaur. I used to daydream about driving to California and strangling that little guy on “Blue’s Clues” with my bare hands.
Now, my children watch wonderful shows like “Jersey Shore.” I wouldn’t watch that show unless I was wearing a haz-mat suit. You could probably get an STD if you watched that show on one of those new 3-D TVs. If aliens land on Earth and see that show, they’ll immediately incinerate us all, because they’ll think there’s no hope for humanity. A purple Barney was pretty bad, but an orange “Snooki” is too much to bear.
I suppose I could do something productive instead of just sitting on the couch in front of the TV set. I could, but I’m not. It’s cold outside, it gets dark at 5:30, and by the time I get home from work, my brain needs rest, not stimulation. Hopefully there’s a good bowl game on tonight.
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