This post offers the best cautionary advice I can provide another man who finds himself in the awkward position of carrying on a meaningful conversation with his spouse: each word you speak could influence the time-space continuum, national security and your sex life or, more accurately, your sexless life.In addition, remember the following tips for ending conversations and your pain and suffering as quickly as possible. First, I want to acknowledge that this advice is not based on any quantitative or qualitative research. Second, I admit that these strategies worked well for me and that they shortened, and in some cases completely terminated, conversations of a caring and feeling nature, without any suspicion by this blogger’s wife:
- Scratch yourself like Rover would, around your dangly parts, and I don’t mean your earlobes.
- Bury your right index finger up your left nostril. This crossover technique is unusually upsetting to wives. Why? The emotion of “disgust” easily overpowers women. On the other hand, men are biologically impaired from feeling it, unless parents raised them near a leaky nuclear power plant. For confirmation of this fact, reference the research study in the September 2009 issue of Psychology Today.
- Abruptly start singing "The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr, but substitute your own first name for the word "Candy" in the lyrics. This technique comes with a 100% guarantee on effectiveness.
- Comment that the waitress could be a super model if only she had your wife’s eyes, cheekbones and hourglass figure (your wife will be rendered speechless; expect a foot to begin creeping up your pants leg under the table).
- Ask her if she would consider living in a vampire bat-infested cave for six months while you both purge your societal fixation with material belongings.
- Dial your smart phone with the tip of your tongue.
- Take off your belt or a shoelace and hang yourself.
All of these distractions will terminate your agony and enable you to concentrate on chewing your restaurant steak and guzzling down the mug of beer. But remember, once you initiate a launch sequence, stay committed to following through on these techniques and completing your mission. Because if your wife suspects that you’re trying to cut off the conversation, she will respect you even less for attempting a half-hearted effort.
(next post: I finish this theme by sharing benign topics for conversations plus a terrifying, true story involving an automobile and presidential carvings)