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What Most Men Don’t Have and Why I’m Jealous
I talk to moms all the ,me, and in all honesty, one thing they o3en complain about is dads. They're less-‐than-‐no-‐good at the breakfast rou,ne, they don't always understand our deep-‐seated doubt, and their repeated ability to pee on a toilet seat is beyond comprehension. Men aren't perfect. They've got some areas of improvement in the realm of manhood, husbandhood and fatherhood. But let's hit pause on that less-‐than-‐helpful story we repeat to ourselves and take a minute to turn it around. Let's look at something men DON'T have that's remarkable and beau,ful. For example: They don't have gerbils running on hamster wheels in their minds. My husband and I are on vaca,on and I just watched a situa,on play out in full Mexican color that demonstrated his profound lack of gerbils and hamster wheels. I woke up early this morning to save the best seats by the pool. Of course, the resort has signs all over the place strictly prohibi,ng this behavior (racing down to the pool groggy-‐eyed and ,red, dropping oﬀ your mul,-‐colored beach towels and going back to bed), but I don't care. I've never been much of a rule follower. We're in Cabo without our children and by-‐gosh we're going to have the best seats in the house to watch this kid-‐free vaca,on unfold. While saving our seats, I took a minute to sit on the lounge chair and project in my mind the AMAZING day we were going to have -‐-‐ laughing and talking and lovingly applying suntan lo,on all over each other's backs. I knew it was a lie -‐-‐ that he'd be glued to his iPad all day and I'd be glued to the newest addi,on to my self-‐help book library. But, hey, a girl can daydream. My fairytale of a daydream was quickly interrupted when we returned to our hard-‐fought seats and there was a couple siTng next to us with a blue steel case boom-‐box-‐looking-‐iPhone-‐speaker set blas,ng country music. Uh-‐oh. This isn't going to end well. While I ADORE country music, my husband (born and raised in Switzerland) does not share my aﬃnity for the genre. He's said on many occasions that the lyrics make him feel "overly sad and angry -‐-‐ and who in the hell wants to feel that way?" He immediately looks over at me and says, "I'm GOING to have to say something." Oh. Lord. And they're oﬀ. The gerbils in my mind took oﬀ racing to nowhere on their ,ny, ,ny hamster wheels. Two years ago, my girlfriends and I came up with this term of endearment for the rat race that occurs in our minds when we start to stew, project and worse-‐case-‐scenario the hell out of a very normal situa,on in our life. I immediately start projec,ng how this situa,on is going to end, despite the fact that it hasn't even remotely begun. It's amazing. In 47 seconds, the gerbils single-‐handedly helped me project and picture three diﬀerent horrible outcomes: 1. This 250 lb. man-‐of-‐a-‐man (who could easily punt kick us both across the pool) is going to start yelling at my husband, calling him horrible names and causing the en,re pool-‐side audience to think we're lamer than lame. 2. The guy's going to refuse to turn it oﬀ, my husband's going to get pissed and we're going to have to move to a crappy set of seats that are only open because the rule followers are s,ll sleeping. 3. I'm going to feel HORRIBLE every ,me we see this couple around the resort and I'll go out of my way to "overly smile" at them... so they don't think we're jerks. Man, those gerbils are swi3. They should be in Sochi. As I'm siTng up in my chair scoping out which chairs we're going to move to and how long it's going to take to haul all our stuﬀ over there, I see my husband start walking over to the music man. Since it's a short walk, I only have ,me to blurt out, "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease be nice honey!!!" Richard: "Hey man, I don't mean to be a pain, but is there any way you can turn it down?" Music Man: "Oh, gosh, sorry about that, man. Of course. No problem." Oh. And the gerbils collapsed on their hamster wheel and started looping around it in defeat. The very drama,c, day-‐
ruining, lord-‐we're-‐horrible-‐people event was over in 2.6 seconds. Handled like men handle things. Quickly and honestly. As I sat in stunned silence, it was remarkable to me how when presented with a problem, my ins,nct was to stew on it and project horrible endings to the situa,on, while my husband's ins,nct was to simply go solve it. Men aren't perfect. And neither are we. Every once in a while it's nice to look at what they DON'T have in a posi,ve light, as a lesson to be learned. Men don't live in their minds. They live in the real world. Can you IMAGINE such a thing?