A Walk in the Snark (2 page)
I was never that much of a believer in the whole
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
thing. My husband and I communicate fairly effectively…he brings me coffee in the morning and I say, “What took you so long?”
It works out just fine, thank you very much.
We’ve been married eighteen-plus years, and we’ve worked out most of the little “tube of toothpaste” things that drive most couples crazy. My guy came trained pretty well, I have to admit. He does his own laundry (more on that in a minute), he cooks (more on that, too), and he um…thinking…oh yeah, makes a killah martini.
However. Lately, there seem to be a few things that are driving me up the wall. And, based on some of my girlfriends and their comments about their men, I’m not alone.
Most men live by
The Mancode
. Even though they will
disagree
with you on this or even
defend
their actions, they have rationalized this guy stuff they do. If you are newly married and want to adorably defend your darling husband who does none of these things, you swear, go ahead.
Just wait, honey. He will.
Here are some examples:
• A MAN will drop his wet towel right NEXT to the hamper, on the floor. Why? Because it’s wet. Oh,
of course.
That just makes
so
much sense. (Insert look of incredulity here.) Same goes for dirty socks and (ugh!) underwear.
• A MAN will be completely befuddled and unable to take the empty roll of toilet paper off the holder. He is physically incapable of putting the new one on. He wasn’t able to do this as a boy, and it continues to be beyond his capabilities as a grown man. The same principle applies to the empty paper towel roll in the kitchen, by the way. He simply cannot do it. It’s a DNA thing.
• A MAN is unable to use the deodorizing room spray that has been placed so thoughtfully by you in the bathroom for the sole purpose of covering up his stink after his use. He sees it, he knows how to use it; he just chooses not to. He revels in his stink. It’s somewhat akin to a dog marking his territory. He thinks it was awfully nice of you to put it there as a decoration, though.
• Speaking of bodily functions, your MAN is so used to habitually farting and burping at a loud volume to “impress” you that he forgets to use his quiet fart/burp “voice” when company is over, particularly when the children’s friends are visiting, resulting in crimson faces and tears of said children. “Oh, well,” is his usual response, along with murmurs of something about being the king of the castle.
• A MAN will make as much noise as humanly possible when told to be quiet by an exhausted mother, especially if there is a colicky newborn in the house—or in my case, a testosterone-filled five-year-old Tasmanian devil child—who has just fallen asleep. When this poor, tired, bedraggled mother asks, begs, pleads with the daddy to please, please,
please
be quiet, just this once, the MAN will inadvertently bang shut every drawer, door, and window in sight. And then yelp loudly because he slammed his wittle, bitty finger, thus waking the sleeping babe. Goddamn it.
• A MAN will help around the house. He is a giver. He will even, at times, throw in a load of laundry. Where it will stay. Forever. Men do not fold clothes. Ever. Men do not put clothes away. Ever. It is written.
• A MAN
will
cook. (How do you think he wooed you in the first place?) Mine does. However, he will use every pot, plate, and utensil you've ever owned in the process. Your kitchen will look like the Battle of Gettysburg. He will, of course, be so exhausted by all this preparation (read: using all that stuff) that he can’t possibly clean it all up. He will kindly leave that for you. Of course he will.
• A MAN will go to the grocery store as long as he has The List.
Now, sending a MAN to the store is like sending him into a foreign country. Though he has been there a million times before, and has eaten the same brand of bread since birth, he must call you for confirmation before purchase,
or else he won’t buy it.
You must be specific with The List, or he won’t come home with the items you’ve requested. Write down SOUP and you’re likely to get soups from China you didn’t know existed, accompanied by explanations of “Well, I didn’t know!” I can see you nodding.
• A MAN will listen to his TV programs at a volume that the people of China who actually made that soup can hear. If you do somehow manage to wrestle the remote away from his clutches to watch your own show, it is mandatory that he complain about the volume of your show (half of his), as well as the girliness of the content. It is written.
• A MAN can never find anything in the refrigerator without your help, even if it is right in front of him. This is called Refrigeratoritis in my home. It only strikes when I’m sitting down, finally, after a long day with the kids. Of course it does.
• Beware of letting your MAN drive your car. It will come back covered in receipts, food wrappers, sweatshirts, sundry bits of foreign matter, and with your cache of spare cash missing. Any thoughts you had of keeping your new car looking sparkling disappears like “tears in rain.”
• Finally, a MAN will always take out the trash, but only after it is filled to overflowing, the puppy has decided to tear into it, and you’ve decided, damn it, that you will just do it yourself despite your bad shoulder and sore back. He will huff and puff and make a big deal out of it, but he will do it. He is doing YOU a favor, after all. It is singularly YOUR trash, you know.
The same concept applies to putting the large water bottle on the water cooler. The MAN will put it on but only when he’s darned good and ready.
Now in all fairness, my husband is a good dude and takes my writing about these things in stride. He also makes a damn fine martini.
Of course he also said that he will be reading this post and commenting (when pigs fly).
So what does all this mean?
Easy…
Men are from
Seinfeld
. Women are from
Friends
.
***
“
Men are from “Do u want to do it tonite?”
Women are from “Not if u ask me like that.””
I’M TIRED, DECONSTRUCTED
AN INTRODUCTION TO CHICKSPEAK
No matter how much we can relate real life to a
Seinfeld
or
Friends
episode, no one is really that one-note. So it’s not just my guy that I write about.
Several of my male friends and readers are truly stumped by what we chicks mean. Are women really so complicated? (Close the window when it’s cold out. Simple.)
Yet men seem to think so.
I decided to help them out with this first Chickspeak essay, where I clue them into the difference between what we say and what we mean. Once they figure that out…
So, like yeah. I guess we totally are. Huh.
Men are confused about stuff.
What kind of stuff?
Chick stuff.
No, not speaks quietly so as not to embarrass them
period
kind of stuff. Shhhh.
(Though of course
that
remains a mystery to most men and they will do anything AT ALL not to have to be anywhere near their women when blood is involved, especially when it comes to the actual drugstore buying of period paraphernalia.)
I know. The P word.
Run. Run away.
Honestly, men can be such babies.
But I digress.
No, what I wanted to talk about is simple, really.
Men seem to have little to no clue what we chicks mean when we utter this simple phrase: I’m tired.
Now, in all fairness, usually when we’re tired—even though we are usually so exhausted that we are already asleep
before
we are already asleep—the phrase itself can mean
any number of things.
Let me break it down for you, boys:
• You’ve decided to make your favorite stinky cheese garlic dish for
Monday Night Football
that nobody but you enjoys. You shop for it, you make it, you eat it. Then you leave the big ol’
mess
in the kitchen to be picked up; either by the magical clean-up fairy or someone else—clearly not your wife, who’s looking at you sideways in a rather pensive manner, finger tapping on temple, trying to figure out where she set the sweet, caring, non-scented husband that she married.
• When you decide to GO FOR IT and wonder why you get the “I’m tired,” guess what? SHE’S NOT TIRED! She’s not even mad at you, really. She’s more well, while repulsed is probably too strong a word, since hiding under that garlic blossom of a husband is the man she was attracted to enough to marry all those many, many,
many
years ago; let’s just say she’s more just um, biding her time until the Old Spice-smelling dude on a horse version she fell in love with shows up again.
See…it’s complicated.
• Add to that her disappointment that she’s already cleaned the kitchen, even suppressing her gag reflex admiringly when it came to your pyramid-shaped, sort of
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
-looking heap of dirty toenail clippings left in a polite little mound on the dining room table. (Lucky for you she has a thing for Richard Dreyfuss.)
• Add that maybe she was hoping that while you were at the grocery store you might have remembered that not only was she was out of coffee, but also that the kids were out of their favorite fruity fruit snacks (since she not only asked you as you left, but also texted you. Twice.).
Sigh.
So, if you have not gotten it yet (eye roll), her “I’m tired” is kind of like a loaded gun.
• A further breakdown of what I’M TIRED really means, hip-hop style, if you will (insert chicka-chickah beat here and proceed):
NOT NOW; I’M STILL MAD AT YOU FOR STEALING MY TIME-OF-THE-MONTH CHOCOLATE DONUT; YOU DIDN’T PUT DOWN THE TOILET SEAT AGAIN, AND SERIOUSLY, DUDE—ROOM SPRAY; WHY DIDN’T YOU PUT THE WINDSHIELD WASHER FLUID IN LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD, ’CAUSE OMG I CAN HARDLY SEE OUT THE TINY CIRCLE OF MY DIRTY CAR WINDOW; WHY IS THE DOG POOP STILL ON THE FRONT STEP, AND THEREFORE ON THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOES AND THEY ARE
PRADA
; AND YO, COULD YOU TAKE OUT THE TRASH THAT GOT PICKED UP, UM, YESTERDAY?
Listen, I’m the first to admit that women are complicated. Most men, on the other hand, are quite simple in their needs—and they will attest to that. If a guy says he’s tired, he’s usually tired.
And the reason he forgets stuff at the grocery store? Even with a list? ’Cause he’s bought the chips and the beer. He’s rushing home for one thing and one thing only.
That is, as long as he has Tivo’d the game.
My advice, fellas? Clean up the kitchen and for God’s sake, put the seat down.
I guarantee our fatigue will magically disappear.
Kinda like that damn clean-up fairy.
***
“
Imagine all the men, listening to what chicks say.
You may say I’m a dreamer. I’m clearly not the only one. #Mancode”
YOU LOOK FINE—LET’S GO
Besides fatigue, nothing can kill a mood faster for a chick than a man tapping his foot, saying “Let’s go already!” when she’s doing her best to look pretty. Trying to hurry me along while I put on my makeup is inadvisable if you want dessert later…know what I mean?