A Walk in the Snark

by Rachel Thompson

  Besides, a man never throws away a perfectly good paper towel when he can use it again. Them thar’s supplies, and a soldier don’t waste supplies.

  At this point, he washes his hands and uses a paper towel. Given that the only war going on is our war of words (and his dearth of grammatical errors), I’m waiting in stealth mode to see what his battle strategy will be.

  And he leaves his paper towel absentmindedly on the counter and walks out.

  Not kidding.

  Sigh.

  I grab the towel and fold it in half neatly as I lean back in my chair and put my feet up, reflecting that it all works out in the end.

  I did need a coaster for my martini, after all.

  This war stuff is hard work.

  As I ponder my final olive, I hear a little noise and turn to see my guy peering at me around the corner, the smallest smile of victory on this face.

  Damn. Dude just played me.

  Sneaky bastard.

  ***

  *Poignancy Alert*

  THE DIFFICULT KIND

  Yes, this is another poignancy alert. You see after I wrote a few posts about D’s strange reappearance in my life and then sudden, unnatural departure, I thought I would be done. But grief and acceptance come in waves. So here is another piece that doesn’t contain my trademark snark. Hopefully you will find some value in the piece. If not, skip ahead, like I said, I’m not watching :-)

  Contact broken. Contact regained. Contact severed. Some people, or things, are meant to stay in your life. If it’s something transitory (like, eww—bugs) then, awesome —they’re gone as quickly as they come.

  But people—now that’s not quite the same thing.

  When you break up with someone, you expect him or her to be out of your life. And yet…you know this person is still around, like a shadow in your heart. You take these people out once in a while, hold their memories, and then put them away for safekeeping.

  But you never expect that anyone will take his own life.

  This particular Sheryl Crow song, “The Difficult Kind,” has always resonated deep within me and I knew from the moment I heard it back in the ’90s that, for me, it was about my relationship with my ex-love, D.

  What’s astounding is that we were able to speak of it before he killed himself in October ’09. He was a country boy, through and through, so he was unfamiliar with the song. I told him to listen to it and pay particular attention to the words.

  After he listened to the lyrics, he told me to go outside and look at the moon. “Whenever I’ve seen a full moon, for twenty years, I’ve thought of you, Rach,” he said.

  I’ve never shared that with anyone before. That just kills me. D wasn’t a man of many words. He wasn’t emotional. To share that with me showed me how deeply he cared—over all those years. It stirs my soul.

  THE DIFFICULT KIND is from the Sheryl Crow album THE GLOBE SESSIONS.

  Great song. Little known fact: Her sister sings backup.

  I think I was wrong.

  I think you were right.

  All my angry words,

  Will keep me up at night.

  Through the old screen door

  I still hear you say,

  ‘Oh Honey won’t you stop

  Treatin’ me that way.’

  ~ Sheryl Crow, “The Difficult Kind”

  Mid 1980s:

  He had betrayed me. Twice. I told him that he didn’t deserve to be in my life. No woman deserved to be treated that way. I felt like I was stuck in a bad country song.

  It wouldn’t happen again because I was kicking him out.

  Over our five years together, he had shown me such tenderness, a hushed love whispered so sweetly only I could hear.

  I was already broken, my heart beyond shattered. He had come over to try to soothe me. Again. But even he couldn’t dry the tears my soul was crying.

  I had loved him so wholly, despite the emotional difficulties. He had loved me, too. Love was never our problem. I had given him everything, every part of me. A young man with a difficult life, all his insane truths and self-sabotage making no sense anymore. Did it ever?

  So much I didn’t understand…and wouldn’t ’til many years later.

  I slammed that door shut tight, in every way possible.

  If you could only see

  What love has made of me

  Then I’d no longer be in your mind

  The difficult kind

  ‘Cause babe, I’ve changed

  Mid-2009:

  He contacts me on Facebook. We have had literally NO contact for over twenty years. I didn’t really understand why now.

  I crossed the canyon a thousand times

  Never noticed what was mine.

  What you remember of me tonight

  Well, it almost makes me cry,

  Yeah, it almost makes me cry.

  He says he knows he drank too much when we were together. I ask him why he cheated. To say “I was drunk,” is a total cop-out. “Not good enough, dude,” I tell him. “Pile,” he says.

  There ain’t nothing like regret

  To remind you you’re alive.

  Was it because what I offered was normalcy? The good life? The total opposite of what he’d known? House, car, wife, life? He tells me it was all too perfect. He just couldn’t be the man I expected him to be; that he wanted to be, for me. Yeah, well you know what I learned? I learned exactly what I didn’t want in a man.

  “Harsh, Rach,” was his reply.

  Oh ballbreaking moon and ridiculing stars,

  Oh, the older I get, the closer you are.

  Don’t you got somewhere that you need to be,

  Instead of hanging here making a fool of me.

  I’ll forever be in your mind,

  The difficult kind.

  But you won’t see, no you won’t see,

  The good in me,

  But babe I’ve changed,

  ‘Cause babe I’ve changed.

  He said he was different now. He had changed. He was a father. He’d grown up. He knew he could now be that man. For me. It was all still so real to him. He remembered everything—all that I had pushed from my mind. He still remembered my birthday. That crushes me.

  Tell it to me slow,

  Tell me with your eyes.

  If anyone should know,

  How to let it slide.

  I swear I can see you,

  Coming up the drive…

  We had some really good conversations before he chose to end his life in October 2009. I didn’t go easy on him. I don’t feel bad about that, although I’ve certainly given it a lot of thought. He contacted me, he said, because he wanted to apologize for so many things. He felt he owed me that.

  Another abrupt ending. It was our pattern. I believe that in his heart, he was a really good man. A lost man, a torn man, but a good man. He was the difficult kind.

  ***

  And now a return to the snark…

  “Women think tender is something their men should be;

  men think tender is something their steak should be.”

  COLD FEET

  Like any child, I’ve observed my parents’ marriage for many years. They celebrated their fiftieth anniversary back in 2009 and are still going strong. That’s a lot of paper towel scrunchies.

  The inspiration for this piece came from watching my folks do the temperature dance my whole life. I never realized I’d be playing the same game in my own home. And car.

  Yet here I am, piling on the clothing while my guy is roasting. Playing musical thermostat. (Who opens windows in the winter? Oh yeah. MEN.)

  It’s gotta be hormones, baby. (Surely there was a Seinfeld episode about this, right?)

  I think MEN and WOMEN should come with an instruction manual before marriage. Some things would be sooo much easier. For example, to say that people can run hot and cold is never more true when it comes to a married couple.

  Let me explain.

  I always find it interesting th
at a MAN will find it necessary to open every window of the house while exclaiming, “Why is it so dang hot in here?” not caring or even noticing that you are freezing/shivering your cute little tush off, snuggled under piles of blankets, with the heat on and a hot mug of tea warming your frozen fingers.

  A MAN must have cool air blowing on him at all times. Kind of like a dog in a car.

  Speaking of cars, put a MAN and a woman together in a car on a long trip and all kinds of temperature-related hilarity will ensue.

  The MAN likes it cool, preferably with the windows down—to get all that fresh air, babe. She, of course, doesn’t like the noise, or all that wind, especially on her freshly blown-out hair that she just paid $50 bucks for so he would think she looks pretty. (He will tell her she looks pretty without all that effort, but we know that’s just B.S. to save money.)

  No discussion of male/female temperature intimacy would be complete without discussing cold feet. Not in the “Should I or shouldn’t I marry him/her,” kind; no, this is more of the “Dang woman, get those freakin’ icicles off me and put some damn socks on already!” variety.

  MEN, I can see you laughing and nodding.

  I’m sure there’s a perfectly valid medical reason that men run warmer (testosterone) and women are usually freezing (lack of Prada) that makes us run diametrically opposite on the temperature scale. Give a woman Prada and I guarantee heat will be generated. Ahem.

  See, we women enjoy the fact that our men are like ovens because when we’re all cozy in our blankets, with our laptops, books, and tea (or in my case, coffee) at hand, the last thing we want to do is get up and go put socks on.

  In the end, our MEN make for very effective foot warmers.

  Among other things…

  ***

  “There’s a huge swarm of bees keeping me stuck inside this Starbucks.

  If this is SB’s new marketing technique, it’s working.”

  PIGSKIN, PRADA, AND PRIME BEEF, OH MY

  Just as men and women differ about temperature, we also differ with regard to how to get ready for a party. Dudes immediately think food; chicks immediately think clothes.

  There are women out there who don’t care about fashion as much I do. To them, fashion is function. If it’s cold, they layer. If it’s hot, shorts and a tank. That’s my mom. She hates to shop and pick out clothes, God love her.

  My man knew this going in, and that’s just the way it is.

  My mom thinks I’m an alien.

  To say that men and women prepare for a Monday Night Football bash differently is a wee bit of an understatement.

  For me, I want to make sure that the house is presentable, the kids are clean, and that the kitchen and liquor cabinet are well stocked.

  But in truth, at the top of my priority list is: What the hell am I gonna wear?

  The second my guy informs me that a few peeps are coming over for a party, my mind automatically heads to my closet, of course.

  I’m already mentally picturing my cute new jeans that make my butt look not fat along with that great new clingy black sweater that make my boobs look not small—and that won’t clash with whoever the hell is playing that day. Priorities, ya know.

  And of course there are the shoes! Hmmm…too bad it’s casual, damn it. Realizing my new Prada heels would probably make me look a tad overdressed, I sigh disappointedly as I gaze at them longingly in my mind before mentally putting them back on the lonely closet shelf and trading them for my stupid, stupid (though of course adorable) new trainers.

  That task accomplished, I’m off to discuss menu options with my man. But wait— what’s this? The guy who is incapable of finding butter in a refrigerator filled with the stuff has not only already been to the grocery store, he’s planned an entire menu around the prime beef that can only be found at the specialty butcher thirty miles away, which he’s already purchased in mass quantities.

  I feel as if I’ve entered some kind of food Twilight Zone. Cue music.

  Couldn’t we have just ordered pizza? I’ve got hair to blow-dry and straighten here, dude.

  Husband explains that he’s got a new meat recipe going that’s he’s all excited about and to just chill out. Which I would do, except for the fact that my formerly clean kitchen is now a complete disaster, and people will be here in a few hours.

  I certainly hope he purchased vodka on one of his trips to the store. What is it that gets men so jazzed up about football and meat? Maybe it’s the pigskin. Or, is it the animalistic, masculine nature of the game that brings out the need for our testosterone-filled guys to go out and hunt for meat in the wild forests and jungles of our brightly lit, modern grocery stores?

  Martini in hand, I wield my hair dryer and mascara wand, mutlitasking like nobody’s business. Dress my wriggling five-year old son, pull my eleven-year-old’s hair back, clean the sink, and announce the house ready for the party. Bring it.

  Wait a sec. If he can have his prime beef, then by golly, I can certainly have my Pradas.

  Hey, all is fair in love and football, baby.

  ***

  “It’s a universal truth that men love their TV remotes almost as much as their women. Dudes—you even sleep w/it.”

  UNIVERSAL REMOTE

  Ask any man where the best place in town is to buy oh, freshly baked cookies or organic strawberries and you’ll get a blank stare. However, ask them where they bought their Ultimate Manly Man TV remote control in order to best watch football on three screens in Ultimate Man Power Surround Sound all at once (especially great for parties), they’ll launch into a fifteen-minute story worthy of a standing ovation.

  It’s a universal truth that men love their remotes as much, if not more, than their wives. Many sleep with it, cuddle it, and probably do things with it that are beyond the scope of this book. It’s a relationship therapists have been struggling to define for years.

  So, um, of course I had to write a Mancode piece about it.

  In past Mancode pieces, we have reviewed that men cannot possibly understand our desire for yet another pair of black shoes (Look, Prada!), while we women are completely baffled by their need for that twenty-fifth hard drive. (Even if you're a tech chick who likes the hard drives, I bet your man still doesn’t get the shoe thing.)

  We also studied how you will sit under three warm blankets wearing two pairs of woolen socks, yet he will open every window in the house while shouting “My God, why is it so hot in here?” without noticing you there, shivering like a wet kitten that has fallen headfirst into the champagne bucket.

  And yes, sending your guy to the grocery store alone with a list is like sending him to a foreign country where he’s never been and they only speak wolf.

  Still, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to one particular element of any long-term relationship—something so huge that it can cause a couple to experience a myriad of unnecessary problems down the road unless they work it out in the early stages of their tender, blossoming love:

  The MAN must feel in control of the TV remote.

  I’ve come to the conclusion that this widespread and well-known phenomenon occurs for mainly one reason:

  Men channel surf for the simple reason that they cannot relationship surf.

  Men have made lifelong commitments to their respective women; therefore the TV remote control is a portal, if you will, that affords them one of their only opportunities to still see what’s out there from the safety of their cozy and disease free (well, that is somewhat questionable in some cases) La-Z-Boy®.

  See, the TV remote control is a man’s key to this forbidden, libidinous world that he is no longer privy to; yet he can still see what he might be missing with just a simple flick of his thumb.

  It’s like magic—without the goofy cape and stuff.