I never read the book “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” The title told me all I needed to know. As I’ve aged, I’ve been thinking about its meaning. Here’s my version.
This is a typical question: “Honey, do you remember (she could actually stop right there because the answer 95% of the time would be no…) what I wore last (fill in the blank—Thursday, Saturday, when we were with (fill in another blank) and went to (one more blank)? Yet when I pull out something to wear, she knows the who, what, why, and when of its last appearance. By the way, I don’t think I have ever correctly remembered the answer to the question in 36 years of marriage. And here is the key to why. I don’t think it matters, but she does. To me, it’s a “get a life” kind of thing. I think there is something wrong with anyone who will look at my wife and remember what she was wearing at a particular place and at a particular time. Me? Not a chance—unless, of course, maybe the person was in a clown suit or showed up naked. Likely I’d remember that. Let’s move to another issue on Mars—shopping.
Shopping for my wife is an adventure. She hunts for what she wants. It’s called “slinging the racks.” She will arm herself with coupons and advertisements. She will stalk places where she thinks she can bag what she wants. I must admit, she is very good at it. There are times when, at day’s end, she recounts the results of the hunt, and it sounds like the store paid her to buy what she wanted.
Me? I hate shopping. The “why” probably needs to be teased out on a therapist’s couch. My mother would schlep me along to places like Lohman’s on sale days. To me, at eight or nine years of age, it was like being thrust into a movie called “The War of the Amazon Women.” There was pushing and shoving, yelling, accusations, and even an occasional joust with an umbrella over the last remaining whatever in a pile on the sale table. When we went shopping to buy clothing for me, it was a case of,” Billy, you can have any color brown suit you want.” I had my wife sign a pre-nup that released me from ever sitting on a chair or bench in a department store while she shopped. Not really, but I thought about it.
How do I shop? Badly. First, I don’t see much sense in buying anything new. I’m retired and 81. How much use am I going to get out of whatever it is, anyway? Every so often, I spy something online that I like, and I buy it. I’ve learned to ask first because I tend to like pretty much the same stuff. I have six pairs of long pants in several shades of Khaki. I have five pairs of jeans (I live in jeans), rarely wear more than one pair in a week, and three of the five are the same color blue. I must confess, though, that after her annual drag me to the Tommy Bahama sale, I like what I’ve come home with. However, I have an emergency pause button that locks me up as soon as I hear the suggestion that we hit another store. One is about my limit.
Then there’s the eyesight thing. Women can spot a stain at ten yards that a man can’t see from ten inches. To me, if I can’t see it or it’s only the size of a pin head, it isn’t there—or I don’t really care if it is. I figure people are not socializing with us to see how good our dry cleaner is. Our dry cleaner liked me a lot, but his business depended on my wife.
Do I need to mention packing? With us, it’s like a Jackie Mason routine. My love will pack something for every weather contingency the National Weather Service can throw at us. I could go away for a week, packed in the smallest suitcase we own. I’m not saying that the clothing isn’t schmushed or that I wouldn’t be wearing the same things repeatedly. If liked the blue shirt I wore on Tuesday, I’m also going to like it on Wednesday. So, what happens is I am relegated to the sidelines while she picks out my clothing. I get to do socks, underwear, and toiletries. Truthfully, I love her for it, but I’m pointing out differences here. When finished, we usually have one or two dry runs to find things not really needed and to make sure I have a bottom that matches every top we’re taking. For me, close is close enough. I’ve got the basics down from my 7th grade art teacher. Earth tones go with earth tones. Bright red and sunshine yellow do it. Despite her best efforts, I come home with about 40% of the clothing packed for me clean as they were when they went into the suitcase. They go back in the closet and wait patiently until they are pulled out for our next trip.
Then, of course, there is unpacking on arrival. I’ll keep it simple. Most of what I bring never gets out of the suitcase. If it’s in the suitcase, I know where it is, and I find it a lot easier to pull things out of the suitcase than to remember which drawer something got put into or sometimes behind which door is the closet.
How about cars? Open the door of hers, and it usually looks like it did when she brought it home from the showroom. It even retains a hint of that new car smell. Mine? It’s an extension of my mind—and that’s not a neat thing. Like the mess on my desk, where I can always find what I want, the various things strewn about my car are catalogued in my mind. I’m not worried about not finding something. Besides, it’s not a very big car. If you’d like to see this in action, hit U Tube and look for W.C. Fields in a silent short called, “The Bank President.” It has made a life-long impression on me. Given a clear mind, you don’t need a clear desk.
While at times it looks like a paper factory exploded in the car, last month something actually did. It was suntan lotion I had left underneath something heavy on the floor in the rear of the car. I had forgotten about it. Something didn’t smell right, but the smell wasn’t bad, so it didn’t immediately concern me, that is until I noticed white greasy stuff all over the place. After a scorching week, the top had blown off. It was, of course, the large economy size. They say suntan lotion comes off with soap and water. Don’t believe a word of it. Fortunately, I like the smell of suntan lotion, so until it wore off, I didn’t really mind it. If I decide to sell it, I’m going to have to find a very particular buyer, one who doesn’t mind hints of eau de Coppertone on very warm days…
Finally, but only because I could go on endlessly, and the editor won’t permit it, so I have to stop somewhere, comes the haircut. I know when I need a haircut, but it is usually a week or two after my wife knows I do. She, like most women, has standing appointments for hair, nails, whatever. I suppose women’s hair grows the same length in the same period of time otherwise I don’t understand how they know when the next appointment should be. Me? I guess I could time it out and make an appointment for the next shearing when I leave the one I just got. But that would spoil the fun. Besides, when I look in the mirror, I wonder if in five weeks I’ll still have the same amount of hair I had or if there will be less of it, and maybe I can wait another week or so to get it cut. Besides, the longer I wait, the longer the hair gets, and the more it looks like I have more hair than I do.
The haircut itself takes maybe 15 minutes, including the shampoo. At the end comes the hunt. In a wasteland of hair follicles, there are always several that still have the oomph to push up a hair or two that stand straight up sort of like a lone corn stalk in empty field. I watch the “stylist” (a foolish term for someone who cuts my hair) hunt them down and then, one by one, cut them, often having to twist in contortions to do it because they are microfiber thin.
And so, friends, end the astrology of marriage. Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at finding Mars in the firmament. And Venus, too. Columnist and author Bill Gralnick was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He recently finished a humorous memoir trilogy. The first book is “The War of the Itchy Balls and Other Tales from Brooklyn.” The second is “George Washington Didn’t Sleep Here.” The recently published third is, That’s Why They Call It Work.” He is currently working on a novel. His books are available on Amazon and his other writings at https://www.williamgralnickauthor.com.
