A great Sunday morning to you — unless of course you read the paper online, then all bets are off because Unhinged usually shows up there on Friday or Saturday instead of Sunday. I’m not sure why.
I’m mentioning it now because the column targets those who should be basking in the afterglow of a super Saturday Valentines celebration or have totally stepped in it.
Hopefully, everyone enjoyed themselves and the guys upped their game bringing smiles to their patient and loving ladies.
It will be deeply disappointing if I start receiving snarky gmails again from the distaff side of the community declaring that their partners remain clueless as to what a woman wishes for when Cupid does a flyby.
Last year I was assailed with a myriad of grumps, rants and outright loquacious snarls that made me less than proud of some of my fellow manly males who volunteered to do thoughtful things for their “stay-at-home” wives such as taking on her responsibilities for a day.
Some gentlemen managed pulled off their pledges with aplomb, completing, to her satisfaction, every day challenges such as producing edible food, herding the kids off to school while wrangling a vacuum cleaner and peeling a once semi-comatose cat off a ceiling vent after the Hoover fired up.
Other male Neanderthals didn’t fare so well according hearsay.
Although the promises sounded terrific, they tended to lose a bit of their glitziness when hubbies micro-nuked the morning muffins into compressed cubes resembling craps table dice.
Nor was it a slick move to forget to insert a filter before punching the brew button on the coffeemaker, especially if the beans weren’t ground first.
It also didn’t put a positive spin on the unique date when their dense partners doubled down on dumb by feeding bowel-sensitive house mutts leftover oily breakfast sausage or absent-mindedly stuffed snack bags full of Yummie Chummies into the kids’ lunch boxes after treating them to a nutritious morning repast of jumbo Snickers and power drinks capable of fueling nuclear missiles.
Yeah, I know. A really understanding spouse might let some of the previously mentioned blunders ride because of the “good faith” effort. But it hard to sympathize with the dude whose wife wrote that she has come to the conclusion her mate suffers from chronic brain flatulence especially when he pulls a stunt like he did last year. It seems he didn’t triple check the hot bubble bath that he had thoughtfully drawn for her to reconfirm one of their little darlings hadn’t added a bottle of black hair dye thinking it was bath oil to make “mommy smell purty”.
She realizes that he meant well and, because she’s a forgiving woman, she’ll probably resume adult conversations with him about the same time his first social security check arrives. How sweet is that?
For those guys out there who took the time to figure out what their exceptional lady would truly love and appreciate, from flowers to a marriage proposal, my congratulations. I’ll bet you had an evening neither one of you will soon forget.
As for those gentlemen who continued to demonstrate the romantic awareness of decomposed Cool Whip and the IQ of a yam, methinks it’s time to retreat to your special place and fire up the ole X Box where Xena the Warrior Princess awaits. She’ll perpetually give you a second chance even if you pull some moronic move like the following day-care drop out. If she doesn’t, you can pull the plug on her instead of it always being the other way around.
According to his sister, J.C. wanted to upgrade his honey’s wardrobe, but was afraid that if he bought something that was too big, she would think he thought she was fat. If it turned out to be too small, she would still think that she was fat. Losing proposition, right?
Instead of wisely choosing an alternative gift, he bought her a $200 gift card from a Moo Moo outlet store near their home on the Big Island of Hawaii.
JC now lives alone with an attack goose and a cat with the personality of a wounded wolverine. He claims life is much simpler now.
And so it goes.
As a final note, there is one important fact that continually surfaces when my gmail account lights up this time of year. Men don’t seem to be that complicated when it comes to Valentine stuff.
They wouldn’t mind being in my buddy Turk’s shoes. His amazing mate leaves him a simple Post-It note granting him one extraordinary wish for the day.
It’s an interesting and simple concept that works so well, it takes a week for his cheesy grin to fade.
It might be worth a shot no matter what side of the fence you are on.
Nick can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com if you have some anecdote that might eligible for his new reference file, “Fifty Shades of Grim.”
