Marriage Doesn't HAVE To Be This Way

The other day, I called The Wife with some exciting news that I'd be taking part in the tour of a local brewery, Boulevard Beer.  Yes, in the Broyls' lives, exciting news from the adults' standpoint is either touring a brewery, getting off a couple hours early from work, or getting off at all (seriously, we HAD to move into a neighborhood with NO red dots on the houses.  There's no one here to take your kids off your hands for a couple of hours when you want to do a little schmeny schmeny).  The point is, I'd been looking forward to taking a tour of this thing since I moved here.  The Wife was happy that I was happy, and we were on the same page for once.

We were not on the same page.  That was made very clear when I got home, a bit...well...here's what I was:

Because, you see, a brewery tour isn't just a tour of a stinky, smelly, dingy old brewery where you watch tapes and learn the difference between filtration and distilling.  That's only about an hour of the thing.  The rest of the time you're pretty much waiting for this thing to end so that you can be rewarded for taking the tour by drinking free beer.  And this was no exception.  You walk into the door and they hand you bottle caps which signify how many free beers you get.  You got anywhere from four to eight depending on how black you are.  I got four.  So the guy who handed out the bottle caps was also the tour leader.  He rounds us all up and leads us out the door, leaving the bucket of caps by itself behind the counter.  I turned to the guys I was with and said:

"Um...did he just leave the bucket of caps by itself behind the counter?"

So by the time we got to the end of the tour at the drinking stage, we probably had about 30 caps.  So by the time I got home, I had somehow stopped at the store, bought a rotisserie chicken, and was ready to feed the family, which of course, already had made dinner.  Whatever.  I'll eat this stupid bird myself then.

And that's why "going on a brewery tour" means "going to get drunk."

Here's some other commonly used words and phrases by men which are "misheard" by their significant others.

"I'M GOING OUT FOR A BEER."

"A" beer means a minimum 10-14 beers.  Going out for "a beer" means getting destroyed. No man just "goes out for a beer".  A man does not have the mental or physical ability to be able to stop after "a" beer.  Especially if he gives you this line at 8pm on a Friday night.  Don't fool yourself into thinking that he will go out for a beer, be in a great mood for once, and come home at 9:30 ready to cuddle on the couch and watch "Drop Dead Diva".   Just expect not to see him until 2am at the very minimum, or 10am if you have to pick him up the next morning at the police station for being drunk and disorderly.  

"Sooo..."

Nothing that follows this can be good.  Either he wants you to do something or he's got something really terrible he needs to tell you.  Something like, "You and I are booked on the first flight to New York tomorrow...we're going to be on the Maury show."  Anything from he wants to go to Vegas with the guys to he's decided to quit his job and become an ice fisherman to he's been cheating and has another kid to he's got so many kinds of herpes that he's got two weeks to live.  Either way, if you hear "Sooo...", just say, "Nooo..." and leave the room.

"HUH?"

He heard EXACTLY what you said.  EXACTLY.  But he wants no part of it.  You could have asked him something as easy as helping with opening a jar of pickles but for Christ's sake the game's on and he can't be bothered.  This also is used when you ask, "So...how do I look?"  or "Who didn't flush the toilet?"  Another phrase that also goes with "Huh?" is "I don't know what you mean."  Of course he knows what you mean.  A guy knows what everything means.  We're smarter than you.

"HEY! COME SEE THIS!"

Stay away from this.  Don't "come see" whatever it is he wants to show you.  You think it's something good like a check in the mail from your in-laws for $500 to fix the water heater.  No.  Not only is the water heater going to stay broken, but "this" is probably his erect penis.  Either that or he's created some sort of optical illusion by swinging his penis in a circle.  The point is, "Come see this" will, in 98.3% of the time, involve his penis.  Either that, or porn, and some sort of brand new position he'd like you to try.  But the point is, if you're not horny at the time, don't come see anything.  The situation will work itself out if you leave him alone for, oh, about 2 1/2 minutes.  

"UH, THE BABY SMELLS."

This is pretty much self-explanatory.  It means the baby smells, I'm busy doing something of the utmost importance like trying to figure out on google who played the bellhop in the Yakuza episode of T.J. Hooker because I think I just saw him in a Mastercard commercial, and you need to change the baby's diaper.  "Uh, the baby smells" means, "You have a choice.  Either you can change the baby's diaper and leave me to my important dealings, or you can make me change the diaper, and afterwards, disgusted and pissed off, I'll get a bottle of Jack Daniels and you won't see me for 30-48 hours.  So it's your choice."  Most women just choose to change the diaper.

"YOUR MOM IS STAYING HOW LONG? A WEEK? OKAY."

No, not okay.  Your husband doesn't want your mother staying with you an hour, let alone a week.  "Okay" means that he's okay with your mother staying there as long as you're okay with the fact that for this week he'll be doing everything he can not to be around the house...fixing shit, changing the oil, filling up the cars with gas, shopping...HE'LL BE SHOPPING FOR GOD'S SAKE...and of course, being out at the bar.  You can probably expect that for the week your mom is there, your husband will be out at the bar 4-5 nights, and in the basement the rest of the time.  So yes, enjoy your mother's company and reminisce about your boyfriend in college who turned out to be the nuclear engineer.  Fine.  Enjoy yourselves. I'll be taking my unemployed ass downstairs.  There's a Beavis and Butthead marathon on.

"I HAD TO USE A SOUP LADLE TO EAT MY CEREAL THIS MORNING."

Clean the fucking dishes.  Look, I get it.  It sucks.  I know.  But guys hate doing the dishes about as much as changing the aforementioned baby's diaper.  I can't explain it but it's the case.  That's why when I do the dishes once every 8-10 months, The Wife is not only surprised, she's ecstatic.  But in the same vein, this is why we have to take care of all the "man" stuff that happens.  We are in charge of fixing anything that breaks, or making appointments for someone to come by who CAN fix it, taking the car places to get work done, and, uh...hmmm...we really don't do much around here.  Yet for some reason doing the dishes is out of our jurisdiction.  Well, uh...okay...YOU guys get to have babies!  Right then.  Now get them dishes cleaned, you babymaking woman, you.  I want to have a baby.

"YEAH, SHE'S OKAY LOOKING, I GUESS."

She's the hottest thing he's ever seen.  He would cut off his own arm if he thinks it would make her happy.  If she even hinted she'd be with him if he wasn't married, he wouldn't even take the time to PLAN your demise.  He'd just force a bucket of Crisco down your throat and tell police that you were fat and liked to eat it.  "She's okay" means "The next time we have sex I'll be doing it with her so don't get all indignant if I call out her name by mistake."  You'd rather have a guy say, "HOLY SHIT IS SHE HOT!!" than "She's okay".  That's why I just go with the "HOLY SHIT!" route when it comes to anybody The Wife asks me about.  Whether it's Eva Longoria or Betty White.  I want all my bases covered.

and finally...

"YOU'RE RIGHT."

Are you out of your mind?  You're not right, you're never right, and there's no way on this planet he even has 1% of a point in his brain that would consider you even being right.  "You're right" comes out when the conversation has been going on for 4 1/2 hours and he's tired of arguing the point that you're obviously never going to get.  My wife has figured this one out and I can't even use it anymore because the response I get to "You're right" is always, "Yeah, you don't think that. You just want this conversation to end."  She's right.  I do.  But there's really no way to end a conversation like this one unless you say "You're right" or you leave the house.  Ladies, I would suggest you DON'T fall for the "You're right", because then he'll leave, and you can laugh at how you got him all riled up, and then when he comes back after "a" beer, he'll be ready for makeup sex.  And makeup sex is okay, I guess.