Let Us Entertain You

As many of you know, I write a monthly column in The Vegas Voice newspaper entitled "Say What !?!".

 

Within the next day or two you will be receiving the October, 2013 issue in your mail box.

 

I hope you enjoy...

The "Look"

 

If you're a married man, you'll know exactly what I mean when I say..

 

"The Look"

 

It's that expression on your wife's face when you, the macho guy, the former breadwinner, who has taken up the many years of her life...does something DUMB.

 

There is little doubt that we guys think a lot differently than you gals.  We guys know we're always right....and you gals, constantly prove us wrong !

 

A case in point is memory...something that seems to be escaping me lately as I age.  I can remember the day in kindergarten when Billy Krueger pooped in his pants, but somehow can't remember what I wore yesterday.

 

I'd like to be a bit more specific.  Yesterday, as my wife left the house for her "pan game", she looked at me and said "Don't forget, Hugh is coming by to fix the cabinet door that keeps opening and won't close".

 

Hugh is my neighbor who can fix anything...thank God for Hugh.

 

He's always been there, and I've been deeply in his gratitude for the 8 years I've lived here; so much so, that I'm thinking of purchasing a keyman life insurance policy on him for funds I'll need to fix things if he should have the audacity of dying on me someday.

 

Allow me to digress....

 

Me...let's just say my dear dad, upon graduating from college, put his arms around me and gave me this advice," Dick, you have to earn a lot of money"; and after saying it to me three times, I looked at him and said, "Pop, where are you going with this"?  He then proceeded to tell me that "I had to earn a lot of money...because I was the most helpless (deleted expletive) in the world"...when it came to working with my hands.

 

OK...I eventually made dad proud; I made the money, but as it turned out, he was certainly right.

 

I am helpless...I would have been the caveman who would have died of exposure while trying to start a fire...even if matches would have been invented.

 

Now...my wife is another matter.  She's the Ms. Fix-It in our home. She, unlike myself, actually reads directions. I learned years ago, that us guys have no need for such trivial matters.

 

But...back to the cabinet door that wouldn't close.

 

Off she goes to the card game, and Hugh arrives to fix the cabinet. "Looks like the hinge is broken", said the mechanical guru. 

 

No problem, I knew exactly where the new ones were in the garage...until I went out to get them.

 

But...they were gone...and I knew that devious female who shares my bed, was the one who was to blame. Why didn't she leave them out for Hugh?...but she was off to her card game, and that left Hugh and I sitting there...cold beers in hand...without the hinges.

 

We both went to the garage, and we searched every inch of that 200 degree torture chamber without success...and Hugh left.

 

I thought...wait 'til the "shrew" gets home....I can blame her.

 

Well now, she finally got home; and I steadfastly snapped at her for HER forgetting to leave them out...and not tell me where SHE HAD PUT THEM...

 

...and then...

 

I got...."The Look".

 

I hate that look. I've seen it thousands of times over the last 27 years, and waited patiently for the princess to speak.

 

There were no words, just "The Look" accompanied by a finger waving saying, "Follow me, doofus."

 

...out to the garage, in front of where those damn hinges were supposed to be...was a box...a box of hinges...a box with hinges marked in MY HANDWRITING, saying "CABINET HINGES".

 

...and just a few simple words from my sweet, dear, lovely, helpful, intelligent, all-knowing (she's forcing me to write this as punishment) wife....

 

"You know what's next ???...

 

...teaching you to aim at a toilet I sit on".

 

Yes dear.

 

Dick Arendt