The Background
I'm no genius, but I'm not as dumb as my husband thinks I am. It's been my experience that most men are clueless about their relationships with women. And my present husband is no exception. He's my husband at present. It remains to be seen if he'll be my husband in the future.
Every man has something to hide, and every woman knows it. When George walks into the room with me, I know within thirty seconds if he's hiding something. It's an evolutionary imperative. Men evolved to be bread winners, strong silent types, hunters, aggressors (though most of them aren't very good at
that
). Women evolved to be in groups, to be gregarious, to be political.
To me it shows just how dumb men are. They insist on running all the countries, making all the decisions. And they aren't even good at it. They didn't evolve to be politicians. That's why we have all of these stupid wars. Men have been thinking with their dicks for millions of years. They are incapable of acting outside the control of their own testosterone.
Women are the true politicians. A woman doesn't let her face show any emotion other than the one she wants it to show. We can dial up an emotion designed to achieve whatever goal we need.
For example, if I want George to do something for me that he doesn't like to do, I can use my 'I'm upset with you' face. I don't have to say anything. Perhaps I act a bit standoffish, but otherwise betray nothing. Within a few minutes I can read the anxiety on his face. He knows he's screwed up, he just doesn't know what it is he's done. And he's afraid to ask me because he thinks that will only make matters worse: I'll know that he's so insensitive that he doesn't even know what he did wrong.
Before long he's so eager to please me to get off the hook that he'll gladly do almost anything I want him to do. After he's done whatever it is I wanted him to do all along, I remove my 'I'm upset with you' face. He's relieved because he got away with something though he's not exactly sure what it is he got away with.
This ploy wouldn't work if I used it all of the time. I have a number of tricks in my repertoire to make George bend to my will. As long as I vary their usage, keep him off balance, he never knows he's being manipulated and our marriage can remain on an even keel.
This might sound like I'm a manipulative bitch. But every woman has to use tricks like these or nothing would ever get done around the house or in a relationship. When was the last time a man ever volunteered to do anything? When was the last time that a man had a clue about what was going on in his relationship?
The helpless creatures have to be led to the water and still they won't drink unless we stick their damn heads into it. Women are the politicians. If women didn't control things in the household and in the relationship, their wouldn't be any household or any relationship. Men think these things happen by magic!
Which brings us back to my clueless husband, George. All men have something to hide and all women know it. Is there any man who doesn't have a stash of pornography somewhere? Today it might just be stored in the computer. But my George likes to pull out a video tape when I go shopping and jack off to the images of obscenely-disfigured women doing disgusting things to men with elongated sexual organs.
George thinks I'm an idiot. He thinks I can't read the little boy puppy dog expression on his face when I tell him I'm going shopping. I know perfectly well that by the time I get the car out of the driveway he'll be retrieving that video tape labeled
Improving Your Short Game
. As if I don't know what it is, where it is.
George believes in the 'hide it in plain sight' method. He takes a pornographic video tape, replaces the label with some boring instructional golf label and expects that no one will ever want to bother with it again.
Men are so innocent. There is something that happens in a house called 'dust'. This is a phenomenon few men know or care anything about. They think: 'hey, we dusted back in '97. That'll do for the next couple of decades.' Boys,
dust happens!
There are dead mites and flaked skin. Fabric disintegrates, books crumble. It's called entropy. Everything put together sooner or later falls apart. If it weren't for women dusting, before long floors would start to buckle and the dog would drown in an ocean of dust. I'm starting to wonder if entropy doesn't also apply to marriages.
So when I'm doing the dusting and I finally get around to the video cabinet, it's not hard to tell which videos have been used and which ones haven't. It's called dust, boys.
I notice that
Improving Your Short Game
is one of the cleanest videos in the bunch. George hasn't been on a golf course in a year and a half, ever since he hit that Harvey Johnson fellow entering the 19
th
hole in the back of the head with an errant 4 iron shot from the 18
th
fairway.
I know that George has had it in for Harvey ever since the County Club dance when Harvey 'put a run on me' as George so succinctly put it. Now I am a happily (so far) married woman. Just because Harvey Johnson makes a pass; just because when we dance he has Russian fingers and Roman hands (as we used to say in high school), it doesn't mean that I'm receptive to his rather crude advances. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself in those situations. George has no reason to be jealous. No revenge on Harvey is necessary, since nothing really happened.
But George has to go and hit Harvey on the head with a 4 iron shot. I was terrified that Harvey would sue us for fairway malpractice. I expected the police to come and arrest George for assault with a deadly golf ball. From that point forward I insisted that George give up golf. It is just too dangerous a game to be played by someone as volatile as George.
Therefore I must assume that the video might not actually be about golf. My curiosity was aroused, but when I looked at the video I can't say that my libido was aroused. Forty-something respectable women don't derive stimulation from videos of people with deformities performing obscene acts together.
I allow George his little foibles. Just because I know he's hiding something doesn't mean I should let him know that I know he's hiding something. It's politics, sweetie. If they think they are getting away with things, they'll be happier about themselves. And they'll be more likely to give themselves away when they try to hide something
really
important.
And George thinks
I'm