As a man I am always amazed at what women find so important about anniversaries. This month I celebrate my 32nd. Supposedly an anniversary is a day of remembrance of the wedding ceremony and of the love we felt at that very moment. That day was the day I placed the ring on my wife’s wrong finger and hand. Hey, there was no groom training for the event. Somewhere in the DNA of women is a gene holding back for all the insanity that is the wedding. Think about it. Men are rational and logical. We hope to keep the ceremony short and inexpensive so that the honeymoon can get started. Yet it drags on and on and on. Somehow we guys have to come up with a wedding poem that expresses our inner feelings. So, we go to the drugstore and find a Hallmark card for 99 cents that reads:
“You are sun, the moon, the very air that I breathe. Not a second shall pass in my life that you shall not be on my mind.” Well for 99 cents it was short, sweet and simple.
For the bride, oh no! They put together a poem as long, or longer than the story of War and Peace, which his actually a Man Club code book on marriage. This is where we learn to smile and nod in agreement. It is at that very moment this is engrained in our minds forever – grin and nod.
Then there are some rituals of lighting candles and then blowing them out. Once you say “I do”, it goes from “honeymoon” to “honeydo.” Oh don’t tell me you didn’t see that coming? Your first honey do is to never, ever forget the anniversary.
Twenty years pass the wife decides to drag out the “dress.” Yes, that $1K dress that was supposed to be magical and bring eternal life to the bride. That’s when we man club members first experience terror of unimaginable heights, “Honey do I look fat in this?” Here you must refer to Section 2 of the Man Club Manual on Basic Survival Skills.
Rule 2.1, Paragraph (a) states:
Fight the urge to be truthful. Lie. Lie like you have never lied in your life. The survival of your genes are at stake. Reply should always be: “No honey pumpkin, you look just as gorgeous as you did back in the day we married.” Then conveniently slip her something made of diamonds and gold.
She may persist however with the following second question: “Why won’t it zip up then?”
Rule 2.1, Paragraph (b) states:
Fight the urge to be truthful. Lie. Lie like you have never lied in your life. The survival of your genes are at stake. Reply should always be: “Honey bear, it must have been made in Taiwan. I’m sure of it.” Then conveniently slip her something made of diamonds and gold.
Yes by your 50th anniversary your wife will be hunched over from all the guilt ridden bling bling you gave her, but hey, by that time you should have grandchildren and fulfilled your Man Club genetics oath to populate the next worthless generation.
You see, anniversaries help men to remember the basics of survival.
