Helpless Man! Helpless Man!

:: New Weekly - A Bite of Our Lives, ::: Miscellaneous

My wife thinks that I wield what she calls the spell of the Helpless Man. According to her, this incantation causes females to rush to my aid. Women, she says, are especially vulnerable inside gift stores, jewelry stores, and the aisles of grocery stores that don’t feature chips, beer or frozen items that turn to dinner inside a microwave oven.

My response to this tomfoolery is to chuckle and change the subject. For any man of my age and girth knows that the days of spell-casting are long, long gone. But my Honey Bunny insists, even to maintaining what she calls her list of empirical proof. I recently asked to see this mysterious list, and made a few notations.

Referenced was the young mother in the grocery store produce aisle who successfully shushed her three-year-old in order to devote at least that many minutes to lecturing me on the differences between parsley and cilantro, to the betterment of the wife’s Albondigas soup. Mommy and toddler beamed at me when we parted.

Inside a similar store, a grandmother babysitting wild Indians somehow ignored the melee to poke through a trough of roasts until she located the perfect one for my Honey. Then followed a dissertation on meat picking, and a squeeze goodbye upon parting.

A trip to a gift outlet resulted in skullduggery, when I slipped away to mention to the manager that my spouse’s upcoming birthday needed a present. Before I knew what was happening, every employee in the store was involved as a beautiful bird feeder was unhitched from the ceiling and stolen away to the rear for wrapping and pickup at a later date by me. Many smiles and a few giggles greeted my befuddled wife when I paid at the checkout counter, which had become unusually crowded with females.

This was topped by the lady in the jewelry store who left her post to go to the store next door to pick out wrapping paper for my wife’s Christmas present, and then got all her coworkers involved in the wrapping. They refused payment, but insisted on seeing what was in the big box that I’d brought in to inquire about wrapping. Ooohs and ahhhs erupted when they discovered a giant whimsical teapot.

OK…so maybe the wife does have a point. Maybe I do get special treatment. But my secret isn’t any special power.

My secret to getting women to share their special knowledge and skills is so simple that it’s astonishing that every man hasn’t been doing it for centuries. Because all I do is honestly say in a friendly and respectful manner that I need some help to help the most important person in my life…my wife.

And then I step back and watch the magic.

The Husband @ April 15, 2008

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