Friday, July 1, 2011

The Difference Between Men and Women

"We need new plates," my wife tells me.
I know better than to ask why.  It's what wives do, you see.  Also, on my scale of "so what who cares?" the whole new plates issue is near rock bottom.

Here's the deal:  Before I got married, and I think this is true of most guys, I had an apartment furnished with rented furniture and dinnerware consisting of a couple of old plates and glasses swiped from mom and supplemented by plastic promotional pieces  Ronald McDonald and the Colonel provided with their delicious and nutritious meals.  If I were planning to entertain, there always was a ready supply of paper plates and plastic utensils available from Wally's Gas n' Go which was conveniently located just a beer bottle's throw below and to the left of my swinging bachelor pied a terre.  Mrs. Wally, a rather stout specimen, got her only exercise when she flew from her perch behind the store's cash register to yell up at me whenever spent beer shells landed on the roof of the Gas n' Go.   My friends and I found this hilarious.  The only problem with the arrangement was the increasing difficulty in finding new faces to send down for re-supply.  I don't think she liked me.

Well, when you get married all of that changes.  Wives, for some reason, insist on having regular dishes and silverware--that matches!  (Also, they are decidedly NOT crazy about lobbing empties on Mrs. Wally's roof.)   At the wedding a couple usually receives TWO kinds of dinnerware.  First of all, there is the fine china made specifically for important entertaining.  That set is the one you put away and never see again.  I think we lost our fine china two or three moves ago--can't even remember what it looks like.  Then there is the everyday dinnerware that, I thought, would last an entire lifetime.  As I recall, my parents had the same plates and cups for the entire eighteen years I spent with them.  No matter.

So anyway, about thirty years into being married my wife said to me that it was time for new everyday dinnerware.  I, being male, asked why the hell that was necessary and mentioned that I was just getting used to the stuff we had and was more than proud of the fact that I had only broken about half of it.  These days that is what we call a "non starter".  She wanted new dishes--pronto.  It was Christmas time and my thinking was:  Don't fight this.  You are home free!  I bought some rockin' new green and white dishes at Macy's or some place at the mall--who remembers things like that?--and thought we're fixed for dishes until it's time to check-in to the Mahogany Hilton.

No such luck.

Now, thirteen years later it's time for "new dishes".  I'm not fighting it.  I'm just wondering if my grandson and I can have some fun breaking the old "new" cups and plates.  I do hope they've made some innovations; you'd think they would after all these years.  Maybe some new patterns?  A Shakes the Clown collection?  Donald Duck?  Something!!  How about a bunch of plates that have dividers like those good old Swanson TV dinners?  I'd settle for anything that said HOT and COLD on opposite sides so that I wouldn't keep burning my mouth.


So, that will be the excitement for us this weekend.  Buying NEW dishes!  We've narrowed it down.  Maybe you can help us out.
Which one of these do you like the best?
Hurry up!  I'm getting hungry.

a snooze
Looks like stuff would run off the edge
Nice edges..less spillage

1 comment:

djiandunn said...

oh, you should definitely go with the bottom one ken - it looks like the 60's never ended! haha! :D