Flies And Honey

I’m a decent person. Nice wouldn’t describe me, but honest, loyal, trustworthy, passionate and responsible would be accurate. I’m Catholic, so I’m fairly sure I’m going to Hell for a whole host of sins that I’m too embarrassed to confess, with full disclosure, in any confessional. I talk to God about my failings on a regular basis, but I’m not sure he’s made a decision about me yet. That makes me nervous.

I’m a great wife and good mother. I’m a better wife than mother, to be honest. Mothering is a hard business, it requires a ton of self discipline along with a boatload of patience for repetitive tasks, neither of which are my strong suits. The loving is easy, telling them to chew with their mouth closed every meal, for eight years straight, strains the edges of my sanity. I’ve become an expert of benign neglect with my younger two that my grown son never had the pleasure of experiencing. My small boys eat dirt and bugs, go to bed with dirty feet, belch complete sentences, gorge on chicken nuggets, shoot bb guns at birds and make penis jokes. I let them play with their daddy’s tools and run with sticks. I’m older and don’t have the inclination to micromanage at this stage of the game. If I can drill the importance of honesty, responsibility, achievement, empathy and manliness into their growing skulls, I’ve done my job. Let their future wives clean them up and hound them relentlessly for my laissez-faire mothering.

Men are easy for me. I usually like them and they generally like me back. There are only four hard core rules for women who want to maintain a good, long term relationship. Don’t lie, don’t be an endless nag, never withhold the goods to manipulate a situation and never, ever lose that shared sense of humor that won your heart in the very beginning. Not screwing other guys helps, too. Trust me, I’ve been a man’s woman my entire life – reading men accurately from a young age was a necessity, having seen the worst, I can easily tell you that the majority of men are inherently good and decent. Love, appreciation, humor and respect are paramount to guys, so is desire. Men want to be desired, exclusively, by the woman they choose. Yeah, shared values and intelligence play a huge part, but I’m assuming you’ve vetted those pieces of importance before committing to sex without condoms. My advice for most unhappy women is to stop indulging your temperamental, inner diva and start working smart. The man loves you, wants life to be good and is usually willing to do backflips to achieve harmony. Stop beating him ugly, give the man some respect, show your love and initiate intimacy occasionally. Flies and honey about sum it up, as long as you haven’t hooked up with a hard core bastard. If you’ve been stupid enough to wander down one of those foul male alleys, just pack up and run.

If you’re wondering where I’m going with all this rambling, maybe expecting some bit of summed up wisdom or toothsome profundity, you’re shit out of luck. I was meandering towards some of my more villainous stories after giving you my bona fides of decency, but I’ve run out of time. I’ve got a hot date with my husband scheduled for the next hour before the school bus pulls up. Next time, I promise.