“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader
SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO LET YOUR WIFE KNOW
(Written 04 February 1998. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 19 June 2009.)
While in
After the evening sessions of the
conference we were attending were over, we decided to go to a Mexican joint on
When it comes to sports, men will
have an opinion about practically any team, and given the right reasons, will
root for just about any team. (Or in my case, root against any team.) When it comes to women, men are much more
particular about the topic. After all,
any man who has a lick of sense or who has been married long enough knows that
know matter where they are, their wives will always know what they are up
to. It is this understanding of wifely
ability which keeps men walking the straight and narrow.
Of course, when you have two
married men taking, wives are a commonality.
Married men tend to start out relaying "war" stories about
their wives, and, before the night is through, are looking for the nearest pay
phone to tell their better halves that they were thinking about them and miss
them. Sometime during our conversation
that night, we got to talking about how really fortunate we were that we did
have wives, for our wives were way to good for us, and, in some delusional
state, actually agreed to "till death do us apart."
And, looking back on how far we
had come in a decade, we agreed that the single life, no matter how glorious it
may seem to married men, really stinks.
The argument proffered by my buddy was along the lines of "why in
the world would you want to have more than one woman in your life? One is enough to handle!"
He then proceeded to explain to me
his exponential theory of women. As he
explained it, one woman is the equivalent of one woman. Two women are the equivalent of four, due to
the interaction of the two women against the man. (After all, they know that he is seeing both;
they always know.) Carrying on with the
exponential, three is the equivalent of nine, and four, sixteen. Or, as my buddy explained, "It's hard
enough to keep one woman happy; why would you want
anymore?"
As Valentine's Day once again
rears its ugly head, I think back to that conversation. Yes, I am indeed very lucky that there is a
Mrs. Schrader; according to her mother, she is indeed too good for me. It is indeed difficult, if not almost
impossible, to please one spouse. There
are those days when one does pine for the "good old days" of single
life. And then reality strikes, and one realizes how really good he has it as a
married. I know I personally was
miserable as a single, I always wanted to have a wife and children, and spent
my singlehood terrified of the thought that I might be alone forever.
One other trait that thirtysomething married men share besides an appreciation for
their spouse is the fact that, well, the old body just
ain't what it used to be. You tend to poop out rather early. Of course, this evening was no exception, and
as fatigue set in, we stopped making sense and decided to go back to our hotels
and call it a night.
Of course, fatiguing early does
have its advantages. It allows you to
call your wife while she is still awake and semi-coherent and let her know that
you were thinking about her.
(Thanks to my buddy, Bill, for the
inspiration.)
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