I bet she never up-sizes.
Fifties Home Economics Advice
Recently, a friend sent me an excerpt from a home economics textbook written in 1950 that has been making the rounds. Titled “Recommendations for a Successful Marriage,” the chapter is about as useful to the modern woman as a set of ovaries at a Southern Baptist convention.
Here’s the advice from this dead-serious textbook, followed by Mama Celia’s update for the twenty-first-century wife.
Textbook: “Prepare yourself. Take fifteen minutes to rest so you’ll look refreshed when hubby comes home from work. Touch up makeup and put a ribbon in your hair. He’s just been with work-weary people. Be a little gay. His boring day needs a lift.”
(MC: Get knee-walking drunk. You’ve earned it. You’ve been with four kids under the age of seven all day. Put a ribbon in your nose and try to pull it out of your mouth. You’re wasted, after all. Announce you’re gay. The look on his face will give you a lift.)
Textbook: “Have a delicious meal ready—on time. Most men are hungry when they come home from work and the prospects of a good meal are wonderful indeed.”
(MC: Take a couple of Hungry Man dinners out of the freezer, forget you did it, and let the dog slurp up the mess. Order a big, expensive dinner-to-go from a nice restaurant and call hubby at work to tell him to pick it up. You can’t go out with that stupid ribbon in your nose, anyway.)
Textbook: “Just before your husband arrives, clear away clutter and run a dust cloth over the tables. He will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too!”
(MC: Drop-kick the Little Tikes crap into the yard and hide the smaller stuff under the couch. Phone a friend to figure out what the phrase “dust cloth” means. I’ll bet that playground witch whose kids were all potty-trained at fourteen months will know.)
Textbook: “Make the evening his. Never complain if he doesn’t take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment.”
(MC: Complain constantly and bitterly if he balks at taking you out at least once a week. Withhold sex until he complies.)
Textbook: “Make him comfortable. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in low, soft, soothing tones, allowing him to relax and unwind.”
(MC: “Place a pillow over his head and hold it there until he promises to do at least one household chore a month.)
Textbook: “Don’t greet your husband with problems or complaints. Don’t complain if he’s late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.”
(MC: Remind hubby that while he was out having a fancy lunch at poolside with his la-dee-dah clients, you were scraping dried Play-Doh out of the toddler’s ear canals. Tell him you have an Internet lover who understands you.)
Sure, sure, Mama Celia’s advice is a bit harsh and may need some tweaking, but you get the idea. Now go forth, ladies, and have a blessed day!
Home-Depot Blues
My husband and I decided to paint our front door last weekend. The weather was warm, and we needed to paint something, anything. The cats must have sensed our eagerness because one of them looked fearful and actually moved for the first time since 1992.
Apparently we weren’t the only winter-weary couples seized by seventy-degree fever. When we got to the home improvement megalopolis, Saturday shoppers were already swarming the place like ants on marmalade.
Painting the front door was a simple idea but it turned into a classic Mars/Venus moment. As a Venusian, I approached the task with a plan: Find a nice color, buy a quart, paint the door.
As a card-carrying Martian, my husband approached the task a little differently: Find a nice color, then, en route to the register, add a $15 drop cloth, wood putty, primer, stain block, assorted nylon bristle and foam rubber brushes, several grades of sandpaper, a gallon of spackle, joint compound, a two-inch roller, paint trays, a bag of shop rags in assorted colors and sizes, WD-40 (just because), a wire brush, caulk, a roller pan, saw horses (in case we needed to take the door down to paint it), a roller extension, masking tape, drill bits (also just because), and a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts from the fresh-faced church youth group selling them beside the cash register.
Now you could argue, as my husband did, that any job worth doing is worth doing right, but then I’d just have to hunt you down and kill you.
I don’t enjoy trips to these “centers,” which are basically hardware stores that didn’t listen to their coaches and took too many steroids. They’re huge and bloated and confusing. Plus, I feel sorry for the employees having to wear those unattractive back support gizmos.
As a basically lazy person, I’d make a lousy employee because if someone asked for help lifting anything heavier than a furnace filter, I’d just shake my head sadly, point to the belt thingy, and say, “Bad back, you know” before wandering off to find the kids with the doughnuts.
The other thing I don’t enjoy is how everybody else who’s shopping looks like they know exactly what they’re doing. Grim-faced women push carts loaded with lumber and various lengths of copper wire and white plastic pipes hanging off the side where their kids used to be. Not only do they know what these things are for, they’ve actually measured how much of it they need. In sixteenths. I want to be these women when I grow up.
Of course, there are still plenty of my type there. We go in for a refrigerator bulb and get so overwhelmed by the size of the place that we forget why we went in the first place and walk out, dazed, two and a half hours later with one exotic tropical houseplant that won’t live past midnight and a fly swatter (just because).
The door got painted, since you ask. And the marriage is intact. But I still don’t understand why my favorite Martian thought we needed all that dog chain and concrete mix.
Mama Celia’s Marriage Tips
Today is my tenth wedding anniversary. Please, no applause. Money and offers of free baby-sitting, sure, but no applause. Save that for the couple I read about recently who had been married for eighty years.
Think about it. That’s eighty years of him being completely surprised when she announces that it’s time to go to a birthday party, family reunion, bus trip to Branson, etc., even though SHE’S BEEN TELLING HIM ABOUT IT EVERY DAY FOR SEVEN MONTHS. And that’s eighty years of her getting her feelings hurt because he doesn’t care if the new sofa will be taupe, fawn, or ecru.
That said, it’s a little presumptuous of someone married a mere decade to offer advice to couples planning to marry. But I am nothing if not presumptuous, so here goes.
These are Mama Celia’s top ten rules for ensuring a stable, happy marriage that will be the envy of everyone in your couples dinner club.
Rule 1: Never join a couples dinner club. These are designed to drive both of you crazy in the head with planning, preparation, expense, and one-uppedness. I don’t care how many times you tell your hubby, “Hon, it’s just for fun, it’s not like a competition,” trust me, it’s a contest and y’all won’t be speaking by the time the Big Night rolls around. I knew I’d gone too far when I was host to a Kentucky Derby theme dinner that included an ice sculpture of a horse done by my cousin Clayton Junior who only knows how to sculpt NASCAR drivers, so everybody was wondering why Dale Earnhardt had a mane and tail.
Rule 2: Never marry someone until you’ve established the perfect pizza ratio. Those who have followed this advice have often stopped me on the street and gone upside my head. No, what I meant to say is, they have been grateful and said, “Mama Celia, we never knew how important pizza is to a solid marriage.”
The premise is simple. My husband and I knew we were made for each other because we’re a 6:2 ratio, six slices for him and two for me. (This altered significantly during pregnancy when it became a 7:1 ratio, my favor.) Never marry a man who wants two slices one week and four the next. They’re undependable and highly unpredictable and will likely dump you for some Internet honey who says she doesn’t mind his back hair.
; Rule 3: Never ask him for his opinion on colors, patterns, or textures. Not only does he not care, but who cares what he thinks anyway? (For the two or three of you husbands who are reading this and thinking, “Hey! I do care about that stuff,” don’t get your Calvins in a wad at my sweeping generalizations. Face it, you’re freaks.)
Rule 4: Never share a razor. Why? Because one minute he’s all lathered up and doing that tongue-in-the-cheek shaving thing, and the next he’s bleeding like a stuck pig and spewing obscenities. It’s not the wife’s fault, of course. He should have known she used that razor not only for her legs and underarms but also to pry up some dried paint off the bathroom floor earlier that day.
Rule 5: Accept that men are notorious for never completing a task. If you ask him to clean the refrigerator, which is working beautifully, by the way, accept that he will have the coolant coil replaced by the end of the day and all your meat will have spoiled.
Rule 6: You know that tired old saying about how you never have sex anymore once you get married? Believe it.
Rule 7: Don’t fight about money. Life is too short, aspiring newlyweds! Just keep two dozen or so credit cards and use one to pay the balance on the other. What? That’s insane? You’ll create a river of revolving debt that will drown you? So what? You’re not having sex and he’s got that weird nicked-up face anyway.
Rule 8: Women, shut up. I feel that I can say this because we’re all one big happy horse whisperer-lovin’ sisterhood, and y’all need to hear it. Quit talking everything to death. Contrary to the bad advice given by many so-called “psychiatrists” and “psychologists,” communication is highly overrated and it’s better to just seethe privately with a pint of Chunky Monkey and some Danielle Steele instead of always telling him how you “feeeeeeel.”
Rule 9: Men, never send flowers to her at home. It doesn’t count unless female coworkers are made to feel inferior, you doofus.
Rule 10: Never go to bed angry. Draw straws for the couch and resume fighting in the morning.
There. Now aren’t you glad we had this little talk?
Lady Viagra
From the anything-he-can-do-I-can-do-better department, I just read where some of the nation’s top medical researchers are close to discovering a female version of Viagra.
Nice to know that pesky cancer/AIDS thingy must be all wrapped up and behind us. Now we can get on to the truly important bidness of our Constitutional right to all the hot monkey love we can stand.
The thing that bothers me most about this news is that if the little diamond-shaped blue pills are a true “mirror of Viagra” as reported, do you think women who take them will suddenly start buying convertibles and bad hair weaves willy-nilly? Will they find themselves cruising college campuses in search of dates with men named Brandon?
Will women start driving their partners crazy with their new insatiable appetites? (Motto of the freshly empowered Viagra woman: “Cuddle hell!”)
To no one’s particular surprise, men across the nation are said to be delighted with the surge of female interest in Lady Viagra (kind of like Lady Schick but with fewer nicks and scrapes).
Of course, the point is that this is welcome news indeed for women who suffer from lazy libidos.
And there are plenty of us, er, them.
A recent study reported that four out of every ten American women have problems in the bedroom.
The fact is, I have the normal libido of any forty-two-year-old woman who spends roughly fourteen hours a day chasing a deranged toddler around the house before one of us, usually me, collapses face-first into a bowl of cold Spaghetti-O’s around ten P.M.
Women don’t have libido problems. We’re just tired. At the end of the day, many have worked eight or ten hours for The Man only to come home to two or three more hours of cooking and cleaning and laundry and homework.
Meanwhile, hubby’s feeling frisky after a nice nap in the La-Z-Boy (the most accurate product name in the history of the universe, can I getta witness?) and he’s dancing around the bedroom like he’s Patrick Swayze, singing “Strokin’,” only he can’t remember the words so he just says, “Yeah, baby, I’m a-strokin’” over and over.
Truth is, you’re so tired he might as well be John Cameron Swayze. All you really want to do is crawl into your flannel PJs and watch Law & Order reruns on A&E until you pass out.
OK, so maybe I do have a problem.
Researchers report that the new wonder drug Uprima, (as in u-prima-da-pump?) is scientifically proven effective in increasing desire but they caution that, in some cases, it takes about thirty minutes and makes you want to throw up.
Sort of like watching any episode of Jerry Springer.
It will be a hoot reading letters to Ann Landers from exhausted men for a change. (“Ever since she’s been taking this stuff, Marge is a maniac. Can’t keep her hands off me. Why can’t she understand that, sometimes—sniff, sniff—I just want to be held?”)
And what happens, Mr. Fancypants Researcher, when both the man and the woman are taking their little blue pills?
Havoc, that’s what.
Nobody will go to work, factories will close, and before you know it, our children will have to sell Chiclets to tourists to make the house payment.
The new Viagra for women will probably spawn a bunch of those herbal knockoffs like icky-nasia and St. John’s Wart.
If you believed all the ads, you’d think that conventional medicine is pure hooey. All you really need to cure everything from nail fungus to multiple personality disorder is a stroll through the nearest meadow, where you can graze on weeds and tree bark.
I have taken to getting all my medical advice from my cousin Vonnie Sue, who is a huge supporter of herbal remedies, which she learned all about after working one summer at Rite Aid. She drinks goldenrod tea, chews zinc tablets like they were Reese’s cups, and snorts eucalyptus oil steam (also good for preventing fleas). She takes melatonin for insomnia or to tan while she sleeps, I forget which. (I forget because I haven’t tried “memory enhancer” ginkgo biloba, which I believe is Latin for “succckkker!”)
Vonnie Sue is hopeful about an herbal Lady Viagra. Perhaps we could call it “Brandonrod.” Just a thought.
If He’s So Sick, Why Am I So Tired?
Forgive me if I seem a little grouchy today. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days. My husband has the flu, and y’all know that when a man gets sick, the WHOLE WORLD STOPS.
Let’s face it: When it comes to colds and flu, most men are less Dinty Moore and more Pee Wee Herman. I don’t care how big and strong and manly he is on the outside, when a man gets the flu, he’s about as tough as community college. (Oh, settle down. I went there. So nah-nah-nah-nah, oh, I forget the rest.)
Keep in mind this is the very same flu that I had a couple of weeks ago. Symptoms included nausea, fever, chills, and Linda Tripp hair.
When it hit, I explained to our toddler that Mommy was under the weather and needed to take things easy, which she misunderstood to mean that she should paint the cat’s ears with nail polish and eat an entire tube of ChapStick.
The point is, like so many women faced with this dilemma, I kept on going because I had to. It is what we do.
My husband reacted differently.
“You sure are lucky you didn’t catch this,” he had the nerve to say as he dumped his coat, tie, and briefcase on the floor and trudged upstairs to bed.
Right. My body temperature always hovers around 104. And Don King was a Breck girl.
Being an empathetic person (sort of), I decided to take the high road and immediately fetched ginger ale, the TV clicker, Tylenol, and Kleenex.
“Do we have anything softer than these? They hurt my nose,” he moaned.
“Shut up, wussy boy,” I hissed under my breath, then felt instantly and sincerely sorry. This flu, after all, leaves you feeling like you’ve been trampled by a troupe of rabid Riverdancers.
Then, because he seemed genuinely miserable, I did the dumbest thing I�
�ve done since watching The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story and said, “Hon, let me give you a bell to ring in case you need anything.”
Ringy-ring-ring.
“Can you bring me my baseball magazines?” (Sure, you mean the ones that are precisely three feet away from your left elbow?)
Ringy-ring-ring.
“If you call Mama, I bet she’ll tell you how she makes that great chicken soup. This stuff tastes canned.” (Of course it’s canned, doesn’t he know I watch Days of Our Lives every day at this time? Like I’m going to debone a frikkin’ chicken while Stefano’s switching babies? Puleez.)
Ringy-ring-ring.
“Can you keep the baby quiet? I really have to get some rest. (Sure, Love Muffin. Where IS that toy corn popper gizmo?)
Up and down the stairs I went. By the end of the week, he was feeling better and I’d lost twelve pounds.
After minutes of intense study, I’ve decided men can’t help whining while sick. It’s a little like asking Bill Clinton to resist a roomful of women wearing bad home perms and toting sacks of Big Macs.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Men look at illness as a chance to return to the days when their mamas crushed Bayer aspirin with the back of a spoon and fed it to them in a jelly sandwich.
How we deal with illness is just one of the ways men and women are different.
Men, for instance, will never understand Basic Women’s Economics. I cannot tell you how often I have tried to explain to my husband how it is possible to actually SAVE money by spending it.
Instead of seeing that I spent $200 on $300 worth of clothes that were on sale and applauding my shopping savvy, my husband thinks we’re still out $200.
He’s so crazy.
Men have other nutty notions, like how you should pay off the credit card every month as soon as it’s due. How stupid is that? The Ovarian Theory of Economics recognizes that the beauty of credit cards is that you pay a little here and there. Otherwise, you might as well pay cash. Duh-huh.
Bless Your Heart, Tramp Page 2