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Letters From North America |
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You know, in this world of ours there are certain areas where men should be and women should not. On the other hand, there are places where women should be and men should avoid. Now, I’m not just talking about restrooms here. I’m referring to certain feminine strongholds such as lingerie shops and furniture stores. Let’s take the former first. Men should avoid ladies lingerie shops simply because we don’t belong there. We really should leave this aspect of buying totally to the women of this world. Women know what they want, what they like and yes, what we men like, so that should be sufficient to solve this problem. Besides, I didn’t want to spend this entire weekly column just talking about lingerie; it was just a way of getting us to the real story, which is furniture shopping. When my wife and I got married I would have been really smart if I had asked for some sort of pre-nuptial agreement. Not one that protected my money, since I had none. Rather I would have liked an agreement that said that I would never, ever have to go furniture shopping. I have written what I think about house shopping, and won’t go into that again. Furniture shopping is worse. Much worse. Next time you are forced to perform this totally horrible function, do as I do. Find yourself a nice chair or couch to sit on and watch the men as they enter the store. They all look and act like zombies. They walk stiff legged and seem almost in a trace. Their conversation is limited to monotones and simple sentences such as …”Yes, dear” and “That’s nice dear.” The most common form of communication is this one…”It looks good to me, dear.” Now, we’re talking about men who are biologically unable to perceive what an entire room will look like with one small swatch of material that is about ½ of an inch wide by 2 inches long. Have you ever looked at the racks where this stuff is stored? There are thousands upon thousands of fabric designs and colors and textures to choose from. Men can see camouflage, we can see trees and leaves and animal patterns. We cannot see nubby or paisley prints. Women can hold up these tiny little pieces of material and instantly go to another of these racks and pick out some other color that is designed to blend, clash or contrast with something or another to make the whole thing do something called coordinate. What is this coordinate? Men are happy when they get the same color socks to go with their belt and shoes. We expect to be petted or get a big compliment when we get this right. “Doesn’t this look good honey?” Women are expected to look at us and show approval for the fact that we have on our pants, shirt, shoes and our socks. And they all match. How can we be expected to memorize what clashes and what doesn’t? Now, I’m not saying that men are all color blind since I don’t believe that we are. I’m just saying that we don’t have the natural instinct to get all of this right based on another important word frequently used in furniture stores which is pronounced…’concept’. Everyone walks around saying nifty things like…”Once you get the concept, then the patterns will flow and come together very easily.” Excuse me, but just exactly what does this mean? I have been the recent victim of these sessions and am beginning to feel as though I should start to look for some type of 12-step program for survivors. “Yes, I was a traditional furniture and accessory junkie.” They could have some sort of rehabilitation program to help you recover. Like step one might be to just burn your credit cards and checks. Step two, might have you throw away the ads in the daily papers with all of the sales. Step three; has you moving into a tree house where you can’t possibly put anymore furniture. Jail cells are a lot like this. Men in prison don’t have this problem. That should be the reason for someone to commission a government study of how much stress is relieved by men locked up and not having to shop for a new lamp or table. Men, who read this column, let me give you a piece of advice. When your wife says something on the order of …”Honey do you have anything planned for this afternoon?” Trust me, it’s a trick question. Always answer with an excuse that will allow you to get out if necessary. For example you could say…”Yes dear, I’m going in for by-pass surgery, what did you want to do?” Then if she says,” There’s a boat show on downtown and we might want to look for you a new bass boat, you can always say…”Well, I suppose I could put the surgery off for a few weeks or so.” If you don’t allow for this possibility and leave the afternoon totally open, then you have just set yourself up for an afternoon at the furniture store. I have fallen for this more times than I’d like to admit. Whenever I walk into one of these places I find that I just kind of fall into some sort of trance and stand around and hum and nod if anyone asks me any questions. I suppose someone who came up to me and Women of the world, I implore you, do not insist on taking your significant other with you to these places. He can’t help and he doesn’t enjoy it. Just let us go on about our business of earning money and staying at home and keeping the couch warm. If you liked this witty and humorous commentary on life…great, send me a note at
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