OUTLAW INLAW
Please forgive the political incorrectness of this entire column, but I have to speak up. The man-I-live-with has shared one too many memes with me about how much women talk and how many of us talk about pointless and unimportant subjects.
I can’t help but think about Clare Boothe Luce, who was the first female appointed to a U.S. Ambassador post. She reminded everyone, “They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.”
Like Luce, I’m surrounded by men, in fact, I live with three of them, and I’d like to share some unscientific findings I’ve collected over the 20-plus years of living with them.
Talking about pointless chatter. Try listening to a 30-minute lecture on why Dak Prescott is worth the more than $2 million the Dallas Cowboys are paying him for throwing around a football or why Roger Federer is the best tennis player since Rod Laver, who incidentally, is not the guy the soap is named after. I made the mistake of interrupting Mr. Run-at-the-mouth as he was talking about Laver’s historic 200 singles and two Grand Slam titles.
On the topic of sports, if pretending to listen were an Olympic event, only women would win gold medals. Let me give a brief sampling of some of things I’ve had to pretend to be interested in: A 15-minute crash course from the man-of-the-house on the stylings of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson coupled with the male teenager’s 30-minute lecture on John Coltrane’s compositions, nearly put me to sleep. When all I wanted to know was how much longer the songs with no words were going to be playing.
I maintain a façade of active listening with nods and smiles as I wash dishes and the man-I-live-with reads me lines from the book some corporate honcho Jack Welch wrote. I also use short phrases, like “Mmm mmm,” “I see,” “Right” every time he looks up from the business section in the daily newspaper we get delivered to the house, and he says, “This is interesting…blah, blah, blah.”
When the teenager in the house practices with his band in the garage, his father gets misty-eyed, and I excuse myself quickly, because I know he’s going to start reminiscing about the $35 drum he found at a pawn shop on the coast. I’ve been trying to get rid of the dusty $35 late-1930s white, marine pearl, 8-inch Radio King snare at garage sales ever since.
If anyone has an hour to two to spare just mention Willie Nelson, Ernest Tubb, Bob Wills, Charlie Pride or any country singer born before 1940, and an invitation to the house will be extended, complete with a tour of the-man-of-the-house’s record collection, a viewing of his snare and thank you meal of enchiladas from me for listening.
Would the difference between an Underwood and Remington typewriter, the inner workings of the Macintosh operating system or why Guinness Draught is a good substitute for a meal qualify as unimportant? I think so.
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