Men Play the Game; Women Know the Score

On Wednesday, my good buddy Wicked Thistle and I met up with our respective laptops at a local coffee shop with the goal of eating overpriced pastries and sipping trendy, overpriced caffeinated drinks. And to eventually stop gossiping, eating, and sipping, and maybe tap out some writerly-type stuff on our laptops.

Wicked is a full time teacher and a closet writer. I’m a most-of-the-time writer and a not-so-closet shoe fetishist, which is ironic much, because on those rare occasions when I muster up enough cojones to actually sit down and calculate my really real per hour pay? I shouldn’t be buying a newspaper much less a pair of these:




Anyway.

Normally, I’d never go to a coffee shop with my laptop to write. When I have an assignment, I write at home. On my iMac. In my running clothing because while there may be just enough time to get in a workout before the day starts, there most certainly isn’t enough time to change and shower. Yew. I know. Glamorous.

Anyway, there are several reasons why I make an exception for Wicked:

A. She is a most excellent writer and when I am around her, I am inspired to excellence. Or at least shorter sentences.

B. She never, ever, ever finishes an entire piece of cake and since we know each other well enough by now to share girl germs, that means I get extra.

C. She is two years into a relationship with a man who sounds suspiciously similar to Moi’s own enginemeering-type Spousal Unit, and therefore the path she is treading is one upon which I have already tripped. In flats. Which means I get to have a laugh or two.

So as a prelude to writing, Wicked and I did the gossip thing, and then the what do our recyclables say to the neighbors about our drinking habits thing, and then the, well we’re not really all that bothered by Daniel Craig’s small headedness (and do these celebretard types, like, Google themselves in their off hours, and, if so, do you think there's a chance DC's lawyers would send an email asking us to cease and desist in our disparaging talk about his body parts?) thing, and then, one final thing before actually writing, the All About Our Spousal Units thing.

During which convo I made an observance that isn’t it interesting how some men, upon tipping over into the big 4-Uh-O territory, also seem at the same time to turn ever so slowly into curmudgeons when it comes to the goings-on in the world?



I said to Wicked that I’m not sure I could handle it if, in our twilight years, S.B. morphed from Super Duper Sexy Calm Guy into Bat Shit Crazy Yelling at the Television Guy. Especially if said morphing involved the frequent use of the phrase “back in my day” and the wearing of those weird ass polyester jumpsuits with the little belts at the waist.

Even if S.B. does it during our really, really twilight years together, that is still no excuse, because even at eighty bazillion years of age I will have nonetheless doggedly upheld MY end of the bargain by not putting myself out to pasture with buckets of Ben and Jerry’s and all-you-can-eat buffets with the girls. In other words, I will most likely fool myself into thinking I still have a shot at the tennis pro down the road (an attitude predicated, of course, on there being mucho plastic surgery breakthroughs within the next forty years.)

And while Wicked did give me her classic, “Good grief, what planet are you from?” look, she did eventually have to agree that this would, indeed, be a relationship killer of epic proportions.

Naturally, the conversation then swung 'round to present day annoyances, like the way our spousal units flip with white lightening speed through the channels whenever commercials pop up and how that is, in actuality, tremendously more irritating than actually watching the commercials themselves.

Which is when I dispensed yet another brilliant piece of relationship advice: Always, always, always be on the lookout for ever more clever ways to mess with your man’s mind. In other words: hide the remote. It's the marital equivalent of putting peanut butter on the roof of the dog’s mouth. You’ll only get away with it a couple of times, but those couple times? Priceless.

So, I want to know: what's your relationship equivalent of peanut butter?