Remember That Time You Said ______, Your Wife Sure Does.
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
A team of American psychologists has published the results of a study that proves men never remember marital spats and women never forget. This is supposed to be news? Every dough-head in the world knows that. Of course women remember everything; we didn’t need another asinine survey to prove it.
I do take exception to one part of their report however. It suggests a woman’s brain is better organized and is wired to both feel and remember emotions more clearly. They are assuming here the average man’s brain is wired in the first place. Mine became unhooked when I fell off my tricycle when I was four years old.
Ladies, the reason your beloved doesn’t remember arguments like the one the two of you had last Christmas morning when he gave you an egg timer when you were expecting a diamond watch, is the poor sap wasn’t listening. He was too busy trying to remember how he could have misread all your signals. He was sure you said back in November, “I’m sorry, my precious, I’ve once again hard-boiled your egg. If only I had something reliable to tell the time with — like an expensive time-piece.” Then you hung a big smooch on him that blew the end right out of his slippers.
That egg timer cost him $3.95 and you didn’t even thank him for it — or the $10 alarm clock either. In the ensuing debate, he recalls you mentioning the fact he forgot your birthday in 1986 and never came home until 2:17 in the morning reeking of beer. You were kind enough also to bring up for the 27th time, that he passed gas in front of your mother back in ’72. He remembers you saying something about your ex-boyfriend buying you a gold choker just because he loved you, which suddenly must have seemed like an excellent idea to him — especially the choking part. And he remembers saying something clever about that choker, which was very likely stolen, adding to your beauty by covering up your goitre. But everything else about the Yuletide discussion is just a blur. Well there was one brief moment of clarity as his life passed before his eyes when the frying pan hit him.
Wives have remarkable memories for things past. You sir, know that. Your wife remembers what Mary-Lou wore to Cynthia’s wedding in 1981 and so do you. Except she remembers the colour, the material, how much she paid for it and the cute little pillbox hat she wore completed her ensemble so perfectly. All you remember is the plunging neckline and what fell out when she tripped over a chair in the battle for the bride’s bouquet. I believe it came up in the Christmas morning argument too — especially the part about you offering to return the escapees to their taffeta prison.
In my three-day marriage preparation course, Little Jimmy’s Guide to Wedded Bliss, which will be advertised as soon as I settle with the Bide-A-Wee Motel for the repairs after the last one, there is a whole day set aside for ‘family arguments’.
In the morning seminar handout, ‘Witty Comebacks and How to Dial 911 With Two Broken Arms’, I recommend keeping your mouth shut. No matter what you say or how apropos the remark is to the conversation, your idiotic wisecrack will come back to haunt you forever. A particular clever bon mot will be written on the back of an envelope and placed in your inside pocket just before the funeral director person closes the lid.
Whatever you do, at no time in a family knock-down-drag-out donnybrook, should you ever mention your beloved’s family, weight, relatives, ex-lovers (or current lover or lovers if applicable), lack of brain cells, hair colouring or width across the beam (especially that one). Whatever you say will be with you for all eternity. As a great Sioux War Chief once said, “As long as the winds blow, the grass grows and the white-eyes try to con us out of our last buffalo hide, a woman will remember always — and maybe a couple of beaver skins longer.”
Some day when you are called before the Great Judge and he asks you why you should be allowed through the Pearly Gates, you will say, “Because I was a good husband.”
And He will say,”Really? It says here in this affidavit filed by your wife, that back on July 14th, 1969, you called her a ‘_____ ’ and again on August 13th, 1994 after she took the car keys away from you, a ‘_____’
“The next elevator going to hell leaves in 20 minutes.”
(Image Supplied)
