Women are Like ... What Again?

CHAPTER TWO

I have been reading Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys (published by Ballantine Books and available on Amazon.com, which is where I found it).  Since there is a guide to guys on the market, I thought it would be fair to give equal attention to us women.  I appointed myself to the job, because I am eminently qualified, being a woman.

I already started this in another post, and it was fun.  I like to have fun when I write, so here is the next installment.

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See that chair in the background?
It used to be in front of the daybed.

Interior Decorating

There is one thing that every red-blooded woman feels deep in her heart:  nothing in the house ever looks good where it is now.  This is of vital importance.  To a Real Woman, her environment is intertwined with her mental health, the well-being of her family and her reputation with in-laws, friends, neighbors, the co-op board (when applicable) and anyone else who might drop in, including that cute UPS guy who looks like Johnny Depp.

Even women who work outside the home during the day and only see their dwelling places on evenings and weekends are afflicted with the compulsion to move things around at home.  It comes with estrogen, breasts, lady parts and Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Some women are happy to move furniture around by themselves.  I am one of those.  It gives a female person the sense of power that you only get when you have successfully waged war against a heavy object and won.

WOMAN:  Okay, couch!  I’ve got you where I want you and don’t you ever forget it!  I can put you anywhere and you can’t do anything about it!

COUCH:  I have patience, my dear.  One of these days, when you least expect it, I will blow a spring or make one of my legs fall off.  Vengeance is sweet.

WOMAN:  I dare you to try it!  I know where all the thrift shops are, and I won’t hesitate to send you there.  You can be replaced!

Other women, for one reason or another, would rather get a man (or men) to do the work while they, the women, supervise.  To achieve this, there must be a man (or men) available, and they must be willing to help, eager to avoid a confrontation or in a position where their only other choice is a life of supreme misery and degradation.

The advantage of having guys move the furniture around is that the woman can see if the new location improves the ambience of the room, or if the piece being moved would look better somewhere else.  This sometimes involves moving several big pieces around more than once.  In that case, the men usually stage a strike after about the fifth time they are asked to pick something up and move it.  They declare that the woman should have planned the whole room and made all final decisions ahead of time.  That is difficult for us.  We save it for the times we are moving the furniture ourselves.

Once every item in the room is in its new place, the woman will be happy and content – for about six months.  She will then decide that the feng shui of the room is all wrong and start the whole rearranging project all over again.

We can’t help it.  Our hormones make us do it.

Another aspect of female interior decorating involves our intense attention to detail and our love of frills.  These include such disparate objects as:

1. Knickknacks and tchotchkes, the smaller and more breakable the better
2. Plants
3. An afghan that Grandma crocheted back in 1940, hung over the back of the couch
4. Matching bookends
5. Stuffed animals
6. The children’s First Grade art projects
7. Doilies, usually white ones that get dirty if you look at them
8. Pictures of relatives and pretty scenes

If you see any of the following items of decoration in a home, you can be sure that (1) no woman lives there or (2) they were put up or placed somewhere despite strong protests and severe disapproval from the women of the house:

1. A singing fish
2. A moose, deer or elk head
3. A gun rack
4. A gasoline can
5. An old chair patched up with duct tape
6. ANYTHING patched up with duct tape

This illustrates a basic difference between men and women:  we care about all the important things, like matching furniture and the proper display of small figurines and family pictures, and they don’t.

It makes life interesting for everyone.