Chooing Well is Important

There are a whole lot of reasons I made the right decision about who to marry. A story may best illustrate one reason. A husband and wife are preparing to go out. Questions all husbands fear are usually in the offing in this situation. You know the ones. The most innocuous one (How do I look?) can be answered without fear, if the husband thinks it through. However, there are more insidious ones. Such as: “Does this make me look fat?” This question is in the lightning round of the “You Bet Your Wife” game show, because the speed at which you answer is more important than the actual answer. The miniscule pause you use to carefully select your words is just long enough for your lovely wife to fetch a pillow and the scratchiest blanket in the house to make up your bed on the den sofa. This is where I can prove I chose the right woman to marry. She does not ask these questions. It turns out she has a very good reason for not asking me such questions. She doesn’t value my opinion.
That may sound a little rough, but it is quite the right frame of mind. She does care what I think about things, but not things I know nothing about. I mean really, I wear white athletic socks at all times and wore grown-up man dress shoes for my wedding but that may have been the last time. So, am I really the person you want to guide your fashion choices? Probably not.
Remember the line of clothing for children that had special labels to help kids create matching outfits. If little t-ball star Tommy can get a shirt with a “cute lion” on the label and then a pair of shorts with the same “cute lion” he knows Mom will not cringe has he runs out in the neighborhood to play. Many grown men, myself included, could use similar help. The guys in marketing would have to lose the cute little zoo animals used for coordinating the outfits. The icons should be more manly. If captain of industry Thomas removes a shirt from his closet with a “’67 Mustang Fastback Shelby GT500” and then finds a pair of slacks with the same car he knows his wife will not cringe as he heads out to work in the big city. I might be on to something here. How about we market clothes for teenage boys? The symbols used could be a pair of “Jessica Simpsons” makes an outfit. (There is a joke there when referring to a pair of “Jessica Simpsons,” but I will leave that up to the individual reader to finish.)
Another reason I obviously made the right choice is she has absolutely no expectations that I be adept at fixing things. Some men have the knack to take broken things and make them right again. These faith healers of small appliances and household fixtures amaze me. Simply by laying hands upon the afflicted component of the house these Bob Villa meets Oral Roberts guys are greatly useful. I like duct tape and everything but I have no imagination for the million and one uses a real man has for it. The one true indicator proving I am not a Mr. Fix-it has to be I do something which no self-respecting handy man would ever do: I read the instructions.
An excellent example of my lack of handiness happened years ago when we lived in an older house. There was a big downpour of rain. We had had a problem with moisture in the basement in the past so I decide I need to be a guy and investigate the situation in the little concrete room which housed the furnace and the hot water heater. When I got down there I realized I was not equipped to handle the situation. There was quite literally a stream of water coming from the wall. It looked like an above ground pool had sprung a leak. The water was squirting into the room from an eighth inch hole in the wall. I stared at it for a moment or two, and I then sprang into action. My “a screwdriver has something to do with orange juice” instinct came into play, and I did the only thing I knew how to do. I stuck my finger in the hole. This would have worked to, if I never wanted to go anywhere again for the rest of my life. My wife came downstairs after noticing I had not returned to the living room. She then did something that also proves we are a perfect couple. She started to laugh…hard.