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And guess what I’m doing? I’m going to a party without my husband.
I was just listening to a talk show where they were talking about what you should talk about on a first date. The host said he’s observed that most people talk about stuff like their favorite movies and foods and junk, and he thought that wasn’t very useful for getting to know a person and whether or not you were compatible because you don’t have to have the same taste in movies or food or whatever to have a good relationship with someone. So why waste time on such trivialities instead of talking about deeper and more meaningful issues, which information will be more useful to determine the advisability of further dates?
That seemed reasonable enough to me. But then I tried to remember what my husband and I talked about on our first date, and I couldn’t for the life of me recall what kinds of things we talked about, let alone what was said. My husband might be able to remember more than I do. He doesn’t remember much, but he does remember odd things that I don’t.
I do remember that we both admitted that we were nervous. In fact, I may have said something about wanting to throw up, which I suspect is on the list of things NOT to talk about on a first date, but here I am thirteen years later, married to the dude I was going to throw up on, so what do the experts know?
We went to a movie, which is also another no-no for a first date because you don’t have the opportunity to talk to each other during a movie. Unless you’re the type of rude person who does talk during movies. See, it does afford you the opportunity to find out if the other person is a rude movie-talker, or perhaps you will discover that you’re both the type of person who likes to yell stuff at the movie screen. Perhaps you will have your own Mystery Science Theater 3000 experience and bond over that. So that just goes to show that going to the movies is not such a useless first date after all. You should also probably go to a comedy, because if the person has an annoying laugh, you’ll want to find that out sooner than later.
Sugar Daddy and I did not go to a comedy…unless you consider an Al Pacino documentary about Shakespeare’s Richard III a comedy. It does seem kind of ludicrous in retrospect. Then afterward we went to Denny’s. We must have talked at Denny’s. I just don’t remember about what. Then we had a snog on my front doorstep. Yeah, I know. Ew. Well, it got me a second date, didn’t it? (Not that I recommend this sort behavior to young ladies. I’m just saying.)
Now that I think on it, I can’t remember us really talking about anything of substance until after we were engaged. That doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
What we should have done was talk about what comic strip character we were and what person we would add to Mt. Rushmore and desired super powers. Ice breakers, you know. But we were young and foolish then. We’re old and foolish now.
What about you all? What did/do you talk about on a first date? What should people talk about on first dates?
Sugar Daddy: So they’re making a movie based on Milton Bradley’s Battleship.
Madhousewife (after mentally counting to 10): Why?
SD: [shrugs or otherwise vaguely indicates that it is a surprisingly stupid question on my part]
Mad: How would they even do that?
SD: They’re making a movie based on Candyland, too.
Mad: Well, at least that makes some kind of sense. I mean, it’s stupid, but at least there are characters to work with–
SD: Stupid characters–”Queen Frostine.” “Melty.”
Mad: “Melty”?
SD: Or whatever that guy’s name is. “Gloppy”?
Mad (giggling uncontrollably): “Melty”?
SD: The thing about Battleship, though, is what’s the plot going to be? “There are some ships out there–let’s randomly fire missiles and see if we can hit one!”
Mad: “Oh, crap, we missed again!”
SD: “Oh, good, we hit one–let’s fire another missile in the same general direction!”
Mad: You know what would be awesome, though, is if at some point some character says, “You sunk my battleship!” and everyone in the theater would cheer.
SD: I don’t get it.
Mad: It would make more sense to make a movie based on Stratego.
SD: They should make a movie based on Connect 4. Or checkers.
Mad: Right.
SD: Checkers would be cool, because you could pan up on, say, Matt Damon going, “King me.” And then another Matt Damon would jump on his back and he’d become a supersoldier.
Mad: That would be cool.
Later…
SD: I hope they make a movie based on Yahtzee.
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Take my poll, suckahs!
Madhousewife: I haven’t been to that many funerals. I think I’ve only been to…four funerals in my life.
Sugar Daddy: I went to a funeral while I was a missionary, and I went to your mom’s funeral. Did your grandpa have a funeral?
Mad: No.
SD: I don’t think I want a funeral.
Mad: I want a funeral. I want lots of crying, too. I think I’m going to go before you, incidentally.
SD: Can I bring a date?
Mad: Sure. Can’t say the children would approve, of course.
SD: Well, it’s not about them, is it?
Mad: True.
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Have you planned your funeral yet?
I should hope that no one took my last post seriously, as it is a recipe for dysfunctional relationships. There was a lot of truth there–a lot of openness and honesty–but not much in the way of empathy or wisdom.
I assume that the author of the datingish post I was parodying did not intend for his post to be taken that seriously, either–a little bit seriously, sure, but not that seriously. It was too devoid of tact for that. Well, I for one found it humorous because he just didn’t hold back one bit. “If you think you’re fat, you probably are”? It’s obviously not a piece to be enjoyed by the overly sensitive.
He did have several valid points, foremost among them that you should not expect your man to read your mind. It is almost always better to just come out and say what is bothering you. If you tell him nothing’s wrong, be prepared for him to go on his merry way believing that nothing is wrong. If you told him about a problem two weeks ago, don’t expect him to remember it, let alone intuit that it might still be bothering you. For that matter, if you told him about a problem yesterday, don’t expect him to remember it, let alone intuit that it might still be bothering you. Men can’t afford to store this much information in their brains. If you want him to keep knowing something, you have to keep telling him.
And that’s where a woman’s real dilemma begins. How many times can you mention something that’s bothering you before your man gets so effing sick of hearing about it that he just tunes you out? I think it’s “once.” If the thing that’s bothering you is that he hasn’t taken out the trash, the correct answer is “never.” You must never ask him to take out the trash. You must never ask him not to leave his dirty socks on the floor. You must never ask him to please do the dishes. Unless it’s a sexual favor, asking is nagging. You don’t want to be a nag. So it looks like you’ll have to take out the trash your own damn self.
But don’t resent him for it, or you might start acting different around him–so different that he might ask what the bleep is eating you, and you’ll have no choice but to answer, “Nothing,” which will be a lie, but he’ll believe it and you’ll just go on resenting him because you can’t say you’re upset because he didn’t take out the trash, because that would be nagging him about the thing you never bothered nagging him about in the first place because you expected him to read your mind! He hates that!
So I guess you learn to enjoy taking out your own trash. I dunno.
As for men not liking to be told how to do stuff, well, that’s understandable. It might come as a surprise, but women don’t actually enjoy telling men how to do stuff. We wish you’d just read our minds. SERIOUSLY, HOW HARD IS THIS CONCEPT?
Just kidding. But you know, there’s such a thing as being overly critical, and there’s such a thing as being overly sensitive to criticism–which isn’t necessarily criticism, just, you know, helpful suggestions. I’ll show you the difference:
OVERLY CRITICAL: “What’s wrong with you? Only an idiot loads a dishwasher like that!”
NOT NECESSARILY CRITICAL: “You know, the dishes get cleaner if they’re actually exposed to the water stream.”
Yeah, I know that last one still seems emasculating, but you should have seen it before we edited it.
It is also true that men want to solve problems, not talk about them. They want to fix things. I suspect that they mostly want to fix things so you’ll shut up about your problems and let them go back to doing something that interests them, but either way, that is the mode they’re operating in. This is a problem because most women want to talk about their problems without necessarily getting a ton of advice on how to solve them. I’ve heard some relationship “experts” recommend that you just let your man know that you don’t expect him to solve your problem, but you just want a sympathetic ear. That is apparently good enough for some men, who are relieved to know that they don’t have to solve all your problems.
Other men, of course, don’t want the job of giving you sympathy. They recommend that you go to your girlfriends if you want sympathy. Which is cool, you know. If a man isn’t up to some sympathetic listening, maybe he’s just not in the mood. Maybe he’s tired or had a rough day or has a headache. So yeah, dude, it’s not too much to ask your woman to take her problems and her sympathy-fishing elsewhere. I mean, you’re only her life partner, not like her BFF or anything. Just don’t be surprised if she starts keeping more than just her problems from you. Just as she shouldn’t be surprised if a lack of sexual intimacy results in a lack of a whole lot of other stuff, too.
Seriously, kids, if you can’t count on each other for emotional support and regular nookie, why are you together, exactly?
Meaningful relationships require doing things that you might not feel like doing. Everything important requires you to do stuff you don’t feel like doing when you don’t feel like doing it. You do this for your employer and you do it for your kids, but you won’t do it for each other? That makes sense. (In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic!)
I won’t even address the whole television thing. Men and women should just probably not watch television together. Not if a remote control is involved.
Deciding where to eat lunch
Sugar Daddy: We could go to Baja Fresh.
Mad: I don’t think I’ve ever actually eaten at Baja Fresh.
SD: I prefer to call it “Ba-jay-jay Fresh.”
Mad: Please don’t say that again.
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Elvis’s new words
“Toshiba”
“Magnavox”
“Amaranth”
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Elvis’s new aphorisms
“Don’t touch people’s trash cans.”
“Don’t poop on the iPod.”
Princess Zurg analyzes pop culture trends
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Princess Zurg: Mom, do you think that even though the Jonas Brothers aren’t very good musicians, they still might be good at other things?
Madhousewife: I’m sure they have other talents we don’t know about.
PZ: Yeah, like maybe they’re good at sports, or drawing…or math. Yeah, math. Maybe they play music so they can get better at math.
Mad: I’m sure that’s it.
Later…
Princess Zurg: Mom, why are the Disney bands like the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana so popular?
Mad: Disney made them popular.
PZ: Oh, right. Heavy marketing.
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Driving home from the beach, taking in the scenery
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Sugar Daddy: Woah, check out that house!
Madhousewife: That’s awesome.
SD: Purple with a metal roof!
Mad: It’s awesome.
SD: Can we buy that house someday?
Mad: Yes.
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Random quotes out of context
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Mister Bubby: “Bugs are just idiotic fools.”
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…and…
Girlfriend: “He kicked me! He kicked me in the crotch!”
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Elvis seems to have developed this odd anxiety around my drinking glasses. Unlike all the other members of my family, I prefer drinking water to all other beverages, at least most of the time. I prefer to drink water out of a glass, rather than a plastic cup. I don’t know why I dislike drinking water out of a plastic cup. I mean, I certainly can and will drink water out of a plastic cup, if that’s what I have available. It’s not like I go to other people’s houses and look down my nose at a plastic cup of water and say, “Excuse me, but don’t you have any glassware?” No. But if I have the choice, I prefer to drink water out of a glass. It just seems…fresher that way. I know it’s irrational, but lots of things I do are irrational, and I’m not about to start explaining myself to you now.
Anyway, a couple weeks ago Elvis took to setting the table, and when he would set the table, he would fill a plastic cup with water and set it at my place at the table. He wouldn’t get anyone else’s drink, just mine. I thought it was sweet that he noticed that I always drink water and went to the trouble of getting my drink for me, as part of his table-setting ritual. So of course I drink my water out of plastic cups on such occasions. (In case you were wondering about the depths of my water-glass hangups.) But when I get my own water, I still use a glass.
But a couple days ago Elvis started this new thing. He notices when I’m drinking water out of a glass. He comes and stands very close to me and says, “Don’t break the glass.”
“I won’t,” I assure him.
“Don’t break the glass,” he repeats.
“Okay,” I say.
And the second I set down the glass, even if I’m not finished with the water contained therein*, he picks up the glass, pours the rest of the water in the sink, wipes out the remaining droplets with a towel and puts the glass back in the cabinet. Of course I don’t like him to do that because, hello, my lips were just on that glass and he hasn’t washed it, just wiped it out, and it’s not clean, so it doesn’t belong in the cabinet. I tell him not to worry about the glass, that Mommy is still using it and I will take care of it, and he can just go about his business as usual and not give my water glass any further thought. But he will not be deterred.
Seriously, I was sitting at lunch today, drinking water, and I couldn’t take my hands off the glass, lest he make a grab for it. I kept saying, “No, that’s Mommy’s. I’m still using it. Just–go do something else. I’m having lunch. I’m drinking the rest of the water, just not all at once.** No, really, I will drink it. I want to drink it. I want it to stay here. I just don’t want to be constantly in the act of pouring it down my throat. Seriously, I want this water. I want the glass. Please don’t take it. I promise to let you have it when I’m finished.” But he just kept standing there, making anxious noises, saying, “Don’t break the glass!”
To my knowledge, he has not had any traumatic glass-breaking experiences lately.
I finally had to just hand over my glass, still half-full, and let him dump the water, wipe out the droplets and place the glass back in the cabinet. “All done,” he said. “I put it away.”
“Thank you,” I said. For nothing!
* At this point my husband is saying, “Oh sure, she’s going to drink the rest of the water! When does she ever drink the rest of the water? I’m constantly finding half-drunk glasses of water all over the house! It’s like I’m living in that movie Signs! Does she think aliens are going to invade the planet? Should I be taking up baseball?”
[Ed. note: He finds half-drunk glasses of water all over the kitchen, not the whole house. Unlike all other members of the household, who, I incidentally remind you, drink things like milk, juices and carbonated sodas AND DON'T ALWAYS FINISH EVERY LAST DROP, I tend to confine my (water-)drinking activities to the kitchen ONLY. Is it my fault if people leave stuff on the kitchen counter that they don't want to get wet, where they can accidentally knock over a glass that might have some water (not juice, not milk, not three-day-old fruit smoothie) in it? Is it? Really?]
** At this point my husband is saying, “Don’t believe her, Elvis! She always says she’s going to drink all of the water, but she never does! There are half-drunk water glasses ALL over the house, ALL the time! For someone who likes to drink water, she sure has a hard time drinking very much of it before she’s forgotten that she was drinking water in the first place and leaves it there for some unsuspecting soul to spill and make a big, unnecessary and totally avoidable mess! If she can’t take responsibility for that, it’s about time someone took matters into his own hands!”
So anyway, as I was saying, I don’t get this new obsession with the drinking glasses. ButI guess it’s water out of plastic cups for me for the foreseeable future.
1. “So I can’t get a shirt that says ‘Food is the poop of the future’?”
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2. “I promise never to leave naked cell phone pictures of you at the McDonald’s.”
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3. SD: She wasn’t a very good kisser. Aside from that, she was a lot like you in many ways.
Mad: Because she had no sense of direction?
SD: Eh, she had a big butt.
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4. SD: I gots to learn you how to use a computer, woman.
Mad: No, I think the position you’ve taken is that I’m supposed to sit here and not know anything, and then when I tell you I don’t know anything, you can make fun of me.
SD: Well, that’s closer to the truth.
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5. Madhousewife: You know, lots of people seem to like that Mamma Mia! movie, but I just look at it and think it can’t possibly be good. I think it’s the whole idea of Meryl Streep singing ABBA songs that I can’t quite get into.
Sugar Daddy: Well, she sang in Out of Africa, didn’t she? “A dingoooo ate my bay-beeee…”
Mad: That wasn’t Out of Africa!
SD: It wasn’t?
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6. “See that big building that I work in? Go toward it.”
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7. “It makes me feel better about myself to belittle others.”
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8. “My light can only shine brighter if I blow out everyone else’s candle.”
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9. Sugar Daddy: When I get my new car, I’m going to get a vanity plate.
Madhousewife: What’s it going to say?
SD: Probably “U-P-Y-R-S.”
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10. “Why would you want to watch a movie without stuff blowing up?”
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11. Sugar Daddy: I found the perfect gift for you online today, but they said it would take two weeks…
Madhousewife: Oh.
SD: …to bronze my poop.
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12. “So just so we’re clear–it’s yes on the gun necklace, no on the fishnet shirt?”
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13. Mad: I’m going to pray that you stop being a jerk.
SD: Then you’ll be praying for a long time.
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14. Sugar Daddy: If I were God, could I make people with twelve fingers and still be creating them in my own image?
Madhousewife: What…?
SD: It would just be a lot more convenient.
Mad: How so?
SD: Because then you’d have your number system as base twelve instead of base ten. A lot more convenient.
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15. Mad: Hi, it’s me. Um, I’m just going to say this. Our house is on fire.
SD: Really?
Mad: Yes, it’s on fire.
SD: Like, for real?
Mad: Yes, for real. Like, actual flames. There are flames in our bathroom. There is smoke coming out of our roof.
SD: Do I need to come home?
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16. “I’d rather eat cat feces than anything at Applebee’s.”
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17. Sugar Daddy: If anything ever happens to you, Mad, I’m going after Nicole Parker.
Madhousewife: You have my blessing on that, honey.
SD: Right after the Sleep Country woman.
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18. “I’m going to create a new TV show called Time for Turds.”
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19. Magnetic poetry on the refrigerator:
IF EXCESS DELIGHT AFFLICT THEE COME WOO A RUMP-FACED HAG
SUCH AN OFFENDING WRETCH SHALT RUIN THEE
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20. SD: Mad, did you change the lightbulbs in the kitchen? (Feigns heart attack.) I thought that was my job.
Mad: Not anymore, Mr. Snide-Smart-alecky-Smartbutt.
SD (chortles derisively, then proceeds to sit on his wife’s head): Hey, Mad, look how smart my butt is–
Mad: Get off of me.
SD: I just want you to see how smart my butt is–E=mc squared, baby!
Mad: That’s enough!
SD: E=mc squared!
Mad: Stop!
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21. Mad: What does it say about people who watch Letterman, that they always have these commercials for Viagra before the show?
SD: I think it says that people who watch Leno aren’t getting any.
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22. “Are you sure you don’t want any Camembert? It’ll put hair on your chest.”
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23. “He’s got blonde hair, he’s balding… If I were going to pick a guy to turn gay for, it wouldn’t be him.”
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24. “Hey, remember I diagrammed the molecular structure of your name when we were engaged.”
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25. SD: You just don’t understand the system.
Mad: I think I understand that ’systems’ devised by men are sensible and efficient, whereas systems developed by women are just stupid.
SD: I would not have put it so eloquently.
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26. From: [Sugar Daddy]
To: [Madhousewife]
Subject: Wireless Message
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 16:44:55 +0000
had a dream last night that i was married to oprah. you and i met up again at one of oprah’s parties and decided to reconcile. needless to say, i didn’t sleep too well…
-sd
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27. “You know how TV is always trying to push the envelope with stuff like language and nudity–I wonder what would happen if they made a show that had a close-up shot of a dog pooping.”
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28. “All I can say is that it’s about time this ward recognized my righteousness.”
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29. PZ: What are we having for dinner?
SD: Monkey armpits.
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30. Sugar Daddy: I had a smoothie tonight that contained 50 percent of my daily fiber.
Madhousewife: Good for you.
SD: My system’s gonna be–you know, you’re gonna want to live in my colon, it will be so clean.
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31. SD: I’m glad I don’t have cleavage. Know why?
MH: No, why?
SD: Because it would be hairy. Hairy cleavage is disgusting.
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32. SD: I’m going to market a PMS drug and call it Menstru-lief.
MH: That’s nice.
SD (launching into his future advertising campaign): “Used to be, when I had to menstruate, my life was menstruined. I would menstrue the day I ever got my period. But now Menstrulief has turned menstruate into menstrugreat.”
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33, “I’m going to write a book called ‘The Turd in the Closet.’ … It’s going to be the sequel to my peeing-fire story.”
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34. SD: I think it would be fun to teach Sunday School. Do you think they’ll ever let me?
Madhousewife: I would love it if you taught Sunday School, SD. Because then I would actually listen.
SD: Yeah…but they’d probably want me to teach with pants on.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SD!
Princess Zurg: J’Accuse!
“They play a lot of rock music that doesn’t really rock. If something doesn’t rock, why do they even call it ‘rock’? That’s just lying.”
Sugar Daddy has his suspicions
Sugar Daddy: I’m beginning to suspect that the housekeepers don’t come at all. That you’re just cleaning the house and pocketing the $200 a month and spending it on…
Mad: Liquor?
SD: Liquor. And fast women. Or is it loose women?
Mad: Maybe it’s both.
Sugar Daddy waxes philosophical
SD: One of the questions I’m going to ask God is why we have toes.
Mad: I use my toes all the time.
SD: Well, I guess you can use these two to pick things up, but that doesn’t explain why we have all these other ones that only move together.
Mad: I still like having toes.
SD: Well, yeah, but why can’t you move the second one all by itself? And what’s with the big toe? You’ve got this huge toe and then all these little ones. It’s not like your thumb, which is basically the same size as the other fingers.
Mad: And it’s not opposable like the thumb is.
SD: That would be awesome, if it were.
Mister Bubby has medical insights
“I know why I had diarrhea this morning. After throwing up so much, my body thinks my butt is my mouth.”
Yeah, you could have done without this one, couldn’t you? As could have I.
Madhousewife out of context
“Is it disturbing when your wife returns home from a bar with a thick wad of singles?”
Princess Zurg is self-aware
“You might say…I’m a pineapple. Because I seem rough on the outside, but inside I’m really very sweet. I’m also like a sea urchin. Because on the outside I’m prickly, but inside I’m soft.”
1. I graduated from college and moved back to Southern California around the same time that SD left to serve his two-year mission for the church. While he was off in Utah, baptizing people who weren’t already baptizing, I became friends with many of his friends. One of those friends said to me, “I can’t wait for SD to come back. I think you two will really get along.” Pause. “You will either really get along or you will really hate each other.”
2. I often joke that the aforementioned friend was right on both counts, but the truth is that we have never hated each other. We actually really did get along. At least for the first six months.
3. The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a little boy wearing his dad’s suit. At 25 I was way too mature to go for freshly-returned missionaries.
4. His first flirtatious act was to bite his thumb at me.
5. Our first date was supposed to be a cross-dressing performance of The Taming of the Shrew at his college. We actually did go to that play, but it wasn’t quite a date because our friend (same aforementioned one who thought we’d get along) invited herself along.
6. Our actual first date was going to see Looking for Richard, a documentary by Al Pacino. About doing Shakespeare.
I think that somewhere he still has the box of Red Vines he bought at the concession stand. Well, it’s not a full box of Red Vines. I think there are two petrified licorice sticks left.
7. He says that what first attracted him to me was my butt. I never thought my butt was anything to write home about. (Not that he ever wrote home about it. It’s just an expression.)
8. I kissed him on the first date because I was forward like that.
9. We got engaged eight weeks later.
10. He surprised me with the engagement ring. It wasn’t something I would have picked out myself. It was better.
11. While he was still on his mission, a girl he’d dated before started going out with a different guy. When SD returned, this new guy had already left to go on his mission, and he wrote to his friends something to the effect that he was afraid SD would try to pick up with this girl where he left off. I told him not to worry, that I would take care of SD. At the time I said that, we weren’t even dating yet, but by the time this other guy came home from his mission, I had married SD and was having his baby, so I’d call that fairly well taken care of, in the preventing-someone-from-stealing-your-girlfriend department.
12. He picked our wedding date of May 22 because it was the day Star Wars came out, so he knew he’d never forget it. And in a dozen years, he never has. ::Sigh::
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, HONEY! I LOVE YOU!
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