Offutt’s guide to marital success
Jason Offutt
My wife and I recently celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Well, celebrated is the wrong word. The date was on our calendar, I just forgot to look. I sat there watching sports on TV as the day whizzed by. Or it may have been something thrown at my head. I’m not sure.
Forgetting our anniversary was, of course, wrong and one thing I’ve learned is husbands are wrong a lot.
But my mistakes have taught me a few things over the past 14 years, like telling my wife in private that I don’t like my mother-in-law’s spaghetti is in no way private. And that commemorating the day I pledged myself to my wife by giving her a stick of beef jerky is also wrong – even though I’d have been fine if she’d done that for me.
If you want to make me happy, honey, just remember two words: beef jerky.
So, to stay on your wife’s good side (first, tell her she only has good sides) follow these hard-learned lessons from Jason Offutt’s Guide to Marital Bliss:
• Although it may sound like a slam-dunk, under no circumstance should you buy your wife chocolate. The conversation alwaysgoes like this:
Husband (holding a plastic grocery sack because husbands don’t wrap presents): Happy Valentine’s Day/anniversary/birthday/Arbor Day, honey. I hope you like your present.
Wife: Oh, chocolate. You are so sweet. I love you.
Exactly half-an-hour later from under a pile of wrappers.
Wife: My stomach hurts. You’re trying to make me fat. I hate you.
• Whenever your wife asks you to do work outside, prop a ladder against the side of the house. It will present the illusion you’re doing something constructive when you’re really in the garage drinking beer.
• Speaking of beer, always buy the largest number of units per container. This way when your wife frowns after you bring home a 30-pack of Budweiser, tell her you spent only .66 cents per can as compared to the $1.20 per can you would have spent if you’d only bought a six-pack. You’re saving money and she can’t argue with that.
• Don’t play golf.
• Volunteer to do the shopping. Not only does your wife avoid this tedious job, you get to choose the cereal. Just don’t tell her you intentionally picked the longest checkout line because the person in front of you was a 25-year-old in yoga pants.
• Volunteer to take the children with you everywhere, at least until they’re old enough to talk. A toddler saying “jacks or better to open” may be adorable to the guys you play poker with, but it won’t buy many points with your wife. • Don’t argue with the intent to win. It’s futile.
There. That’s everything I’ve learned about staying out of marital trouble. But if all this fails, clean the inside of the microwave oven. It works every time.
