Diary of a Girl Dad

I have a theory on the evolution of the modern woman’s purse as it’s known today. I believe that some guy invented the purse with A LOT of input from his wife.

I think the modern day woman’s purse has its roots in what’s known today as the backpack. A backpack is the most practical solution to carry around your stuff since you use two straps to carry it on your back thereby leaving BOTH hands free to do other stuff. I believe that some guy was watching how his wife was using the backpack and made some modifications to it. He noticed she carried it around only by one strap on one shoulder, it was never zipped closed and she constantly complained about the color.

The evolution continued with daily input from his wife that began with the five words that are like nails on a chalkboard when uttered by a spouse, “It would be nice if….” “it came in a different color, it wasn’t leather, it had a wider strap, it had a shorter strap, it had an adjustable strap, it didn’t have a strap, it wasn’t so big, it wasn’t so small….etc. etc. etc. blah… blah… blah….”

All of these iterations were cast aside in attempt to incorporate his wife’s feedback, and were the origin of all of the purse styles our wives speak of today when looking through an issue of InStyle magazine and reading the captions out loud… hobos, totes, clutches, satchels, evening bags, shoulder bags, exotic skins, editor’s picks…

In an attempt to anticipate his wife’s ever changing desire for functionality, he began adding practical features to the purse such as dividers, zipper closures, various pockets, a place for keys and eventually a special pocket for a phone. It’s some of these features that were important clues that eventually led me to the basis of my theory. You see, the phone pocket (much like a place for car keys) makes so much sense, but only a guy would use it. For example, my wife finds it exceedingly difficult to use such a feature. She prefers to drop her phone (and car keys, or worse, my keys) into the black abyss of her purse only to dig through a maze of dark pockets when someone is blowing up her digits. This is why it’s only on a rare occasion that my wife actually answers her phone before it rolls to voicemail. This is also why I, and many other husbands, prefer to text. The phone makes its text ringtone, and, 10 minutes later after my wife has found her phone, she answers my text. The zipper doesn’t get used either, but I don’t have space to list all of features that go unused.

I can’t pinpoint when, but I think this guy along with others got frustrated with trying to create features, colors and styles that would satisfy their respective wives and stopped making purses and adding features. After all, women are constantly changing purses, which is good because if they didn’t I’m convinced you would find a pacifier in my wife’s purse from when my 12-year-old was a baby. I’ve had the same wallet for almost twelve years. Purses have a useful life of a year… at best.

I have come to my conclusion that guys stopped making purses based on a couple of observations. The first is the absence of a light inside the purse. I wish had a dollar for every time my wife got frustrated looking for something like car keys or glasses in her purse only to dump all of its contents out and search through a pile of personal items. The lighting feature is the logical next step and would be the equivalent of a closet light inside a purse, but they don’t exist which tells me guys are no longer involved. My final clue is the latest style of popular purses known as the Neverfull. It’s just a big bag without pockets or a zipper. You just drop stuff in it, and it opens wide so you can easily see to dig through your stuff.

The human race has come a long way from the backpack, but I suppose it doesn’t matter much because whether it’s a backpack or a purse every guy in the world would still be listening to their wives dig through their bags like a badger in search of grub worm and mumbling, “Where’s my phone?”

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved

Next time you see the guy that invented the Jack and Jill bathroom, please do me a favor and kick his ass for me. This is a perfect example of an idea that works really well conceptually, but is an absolute failure in real life.

The Jack and Jill bathroom is a brilliant concept that gives kids their own sinks, but they share a shower and other stuff. Even the name uses fairy tale characters to convey a sense of idealism and subconsciously make you believe this modest Shangri-La is custom made for your little blessings. At my house, this is where Fight Club happens.

Other than some liquored-up moms at their daughters’ cheerleading tryouts, I honestly can’t think of a better recipe for a nasty fight to break out than to have two girls, that are two years apart in age sharing a Jack and Jill bathroom. It’s like a cage fighting octagon for little girls. In real cage fighting, at least the mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters respect each other and hug after beating each other to a bloody pulp. In a Jack and Jill octagon, after the fight is over they just go to their corners and devise a new scheme to get back at their sister. I also think that a bloody, sweaty octagon is probably cleaner than my girls’ bathroom setup.

The crazy part is that the bathroom fighting and chaos erupts randomly. It’s like a car bomb exploding in a crowded market. One minute, life is normal, the girls are saying nice things to each other, sharing their hair de-tangler and reading each other stories. Then, out of nowhere…. BANG!!! Noise, fighting, slamming doors, crying, hair-pulling and yelling explode out of nowhere, and I’m running down to their room like a fight just broke out among the general population in the prison yard. In a word… chaos. At least the guards have pepper-spray. Me, I face the shanks un-armed. Although there is no pattern to the time of day when emotions will come unhinged, you can usually count on it happening at the worst time possible. I’m either pouring my first cup of coffee or they are getting ready for school when – BANG!!! – they are going at each other like kids after a piñata. Some pattern to all of this would be too easy to fix. Instead, there is no buildup and no warning.

I think it has to do with just being sisters. They don’t hit each other. Instead, they shred each other to pieces with their words. To make matters worse, their emotions have no restrictor plates. So, when a certain something is said their emotions go from 0 mph to 100 mph in less than a second and it’s officially “ON”, and it escalates from there.

Sisters know each other’s vulnerabilities and insecurities. And I think it’s this knowledge that gives them the power they can’t resist. Inside, they must be thinking…. “If I say her _____ is ugly, I know she will go ballistic.” They learn there is a lot of power behind being able to push that button, and it’s usually too tempting not to go ahead and push it.

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved

You’d think I’d be used to the noise by now, but even as my girls get older it doesn’t seem to go away – it’s just different and louder. Not a day goes by that it doesn’t sound like there’s a spring break hotel party happening on the girls’ side of the house complete with music, yelling, dancing and fights – just no foam …yet.

Ever since my girls were born, it doesn’t matter if it’s a car ride, restaurant, church, wedding, mall… etc. they are loud. It’s like they learned to whispere in a saw mill. When they were little, it was crying (mostly me), baby-talk and all sorts of silverware, dishes and cups bouncing off the floor. Now it’s loud conversations, arguments, laughing and music. You don’t even realize how loud it is until that rare moment you’re in your car or home by yourself and all you hear is the ringing in your ears. It’s like I live in a room where someone is running a table saw or hard wood floor sander 24/7. And once I’m outside, I realize just how loud it was. It’s constant sensory overload made worse by music, computers, Wii, televsion, Xbox… etc. all hitting you at one once. By the time I finally get them in bed I feel like a riot officer who just got the demonstrators dispursed – except I don’t have the benefit of riot gear and pepper spray to control the situation.

What’s amazing to me is how quickly things can spiral out of control. One minute we are having a great time, and the next thing you know – a flash and a bang. One girl says something to the other and it’s like a car bomb just went off – chaos. No warning. It happens in under 2 seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… two girls and mom all yelling and trying to talk over each other at the same time – I don’t even know what just happened much less do I have any ability to get control of it. I’m disoriented, confused and trying to orient myself.

Just recently, we all went to powder our nose at church and the next thing I know I can hear my girls yelling at each other through the bathroom wall. I felt like a prison guard in a secure room with prisoners rioting in the next cell block while my wife is held hostage in her stall. Church?? Really?? Work with me.

It would be hard enough if the yelling and noise happened only when they’re fighting, but they’re just as loud when they’re having fun together. I’ve gone to their rooms’ on more than one occasion feeling like I was about to walk into the octagon to break up a fight only to see they’re having fun.

My nerves are so fried that I’m like a scared alley cat that jumps at the slightest sound. I now accept that when I’m old I will either be the old guy you see nodding off in the corner of a wedding reception, or a nice person in white scrubs will be pushing me around a lovely facility in a wheel chair while I enjoy the fresh air and feed the ducks…. if I could just work one weekend month into my calendar maybe the shakes and bad dreams would stop.

© Johnny Hea – 2011 All Rights Reserved

Before you get married, everyone says you each need your own toothpaste because if you squeeze the tube from the middle and she squeezes the tube from the bottom you will end up having an argument. For an extra $3, this is an easy problem to solve. How the coffee is made, well that’s another story.

Someone once told me that marriage is not a 50%/50% proposition. It is actually a 100%/100% effort, and if each of you isn’t giving 100% to the other then it gets really hard. Well, it’s all hard at times and all great at times, but what you aren’t prepared for is all of the small things that annoy each of you. I think that is where the toothpaste advice came from. The good news is we both squeeze from the middle, however, the problem in our house emanates from flavors and technique. I prefer a strong and minty flavor while my wife likes the sweet, citrus variety. The real problem comes with technique in that I apply my toothpaste directly to the brush, neatly close the top and brush. My wife prefers to stick the end of her toothpaste dispenser in her mouth, squeeze in some toothpaste and then brush. She then tosses the toothpaste tube back into HER drawer with the top still open. I know the girls have adopted her technique as their bathroom drawers are full of crusted-over toothpaste containers that usually don’t have a top.

This problem is easily addressed at very little cost. However, the daily pot of coffee has become complicated over the years, and I am the high-maintenance one. When we first met I didn’t even drink coffee. The absence of coffee in my life was central to my simple and minimalistic lifestyle that included plenty of sleep. I slept in a sleeping bag for years because it was easiest, and I had only about 10 items in my refrigerator mainly because I didn’t use condiments. I preferred the natural taste of fresh bread and fine meats on my sandwiches, and I didn’t want a meal disturbed by the lathering of sauces and jellies all over everything. So, you can imagine my horror the first time I grilled a steak for her and she asked for steak sauce. This set the tone for our relationship, and now we have a cornucopia of condiments and seasonings for all types of fare. The other aspect of becoming more like my spouse was the introduction of coffee into my life.

I think coffee, like heroine, does not have a natural appeal. It’s an acquired taste, so my gateway drug was cappuccino. I worked in a restaurant that served cappuccinos, and the early 1990s was the beginning of the coffee shop craze where we would often go on dates. Now the problem is that I’m 20 years into my addiction, I have moved on to the hard stuff, and I have a lot of opinions on how I want my coffee. Since my wife uses huge amounts of cream and sugar in her coffee, she will drink about anything poured through a filter – like meat slathered in sauce, she can’t really taste the coffee anyway (you should hear her Starbucks order). Even the truck-stop coffee that has been on the burner for 9 hours doesn’t phase her. I have a more developed palate, and I like my coffee really strong, fresh and very hot with a touch of milk and a moderate amount of sweetner – she would say it’s black. Finally, my wife likes to walk down to the kitchen with a pot of coffee waiting for her while I prefer for my coffee to be freshly brewed. You can see the problem here.

So, like in most marriages, we have an extraordinarily complicated solution. The coffee is made the night before, but since I get up first – I start the coffee. And since we use a stronger roast (for me), I pour my coffee about half-way through the brewing process so that my cup is stronger and hers is weaker. It’s every man for himself when it comes to dialing-in the color and taste. Somehow this seems easier than buying a second coffee pot, but the new problem I can see coming is that my older daughter has been introduced to the black nectar, and I’m confident that she, like me, will soon be full of opinions.

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved

Men and women are completely different when it comes to making a decision. I’m not talking about the hunters (men) that walk into a store, buy what they came for and leave compared to women (gatherers) that go from store to store browsing and gathering information before deciding on a purchase. I’m talking about the features of an item that are important to a man versus what might be important features to a woman. Men typically will pick something that has the most utility whereas a woman will go for the item that looks ‘cute’ (Their word. Not mine.). Men want to know what it does, and women want to know what it looks like.

Let’s start with shoes. The men’s shoe department is a fraction of the size of the women’s shoe department in almost any store. Why is this? Well, women like shoes, and it goes straight to my point that fashion is MUCH more important to women. To a man, comfort is usually number 1 while fashion is farther down the list. What I typically do is go to the group of shoes that fit the job (men’s shoes are divided into groups by function – dress, casual, hiking…etc.) and pick the most comfortable pair that also has the most features – waterproof, slip resistant, steel toe, snake-bite proof… etc. Women go into their shoe department with some vague idea of what they might like and begin to shop. Heels or flats? What kind of heel – pump, stiletto, platform…etc.? Color – metallic, bright, natural? What kind of strap? Closed or open toe? Sandal or sling-back? Women ask questions like, “Can I wear these with jeans? Is the heel style going to change next year? What will this look like with a plaid skirt? Which handbag do I carry with it?” Men typically have two color choices – brown or black. So the conversation quickly moves on to, “Can I get these re-soled? Do they come in a slip on or just a lace-up? How well does it hold polish? What’s the arch support like?” Function versus Fashion.

Furniture may be the classic example of form versus function. Just go to an unmarried man’s place and compare it to an unmarried woman’s place and you know exactly what I’m talking about. Let’s start with the TV. Although men and women both make a television purchase based primarily on size, the size matters for very different reasons. For men, size ALWAYS matters, and the bigger the better. A man wants to feel like he is on the football field or in the movie, so the best way to achieve this is through the largest screen possible with the biggest speakers possible. And if a guy can fit a larger screen in the room, he will because he will always want his TV to be bigger than his friends’. Why? Just because. Then, it is on to decisions like plasma screen or LCD? (FYI – it depends on the glare) How many speakers for the surround sound? Cable or DISH? Which universal remote, how big is it (there’s that size thing again), is it compatible with my DVD player, and does it have a touch screen?

Women buy a TV based on how well it “flows” (again, not my word) with the rest of the room, and they don’t want anything that will detract from the pillows, pictures or furniture. Men won’t spend money on the other things because it means less money for the television. For a man, the television IS the furniture, and the only thing else needed is a comfortable place to sit and watch the television – the more functional the better (i.e. dual recliners with built-in console). Men prefer recliners to chairs because you can sit OR sleep. They are simply more functional. And like most things, for a recliner (or anything for that matter) to encompass the most features possible, you often lose some of the aesthetic appeal. Women generally hate recliners unless they are camouflaged to look like a real chair with a hidden footrest and no stick on the side. This is why one can often pick up a dual recliner off of Craig’s list from some guy that got married last summer. This is also why furnishing a house can be one of the greatest sources of conflict in a marriage. Men marry a woman expecting her to stay the same (i.e. continue to like his stuff after they get married – as if she EVER liked it), and they don’t. Women marry men expecting them to change (get rid of that goofy, bachelor guy stuff – you’re married now), and they don’t. Guys – if you think you’ll get to keep that 72” Plasma TV, don’t count on it. In fact, your new wife will probably tell you how you need a new place to live so you can start all over. Together. As a couple. …And, you will.

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved

Let me explain something you probably already knew… basically, married guys begin calculating the probability, or odds, of how night is going to end from the moment they walk in the door from work… and sometimes, the calculations begin as early as the mid-day ‘check-in’ call with your wife.

Most guys want the evening to end in a certain way every day of their lives. And after years of marriage, guys become very adept at interpreting and processing each mannerism and phrase their wife utters with the precision and speed of a Cray supercomputer. Each word, story and facial expression a wife conveys is a new data point that is then entered into the probability equation to generate an updated probability forecast. These calculations happen instantly, and the calculator constantly runs in the background. Once kids are part of the equation, then each of their words and actions become part of the calculation as well because we all know that the evening can go from >90% probability to 0% if one of the kids starts barfing.

Since women are difficult to read and impossible for the human male to fully understand, it is important to note that these are just forecasts and there is always a ‘chance’ factor to consider. Additionally, each word, phrase, incident or gesture must be re-calibrated as their predictive value can erode with time. As a result, men really have no idea what the real odds are, but we must soothe our curiosity by trying to quantify our chances anyway. And as a mathematics friend pointed out, “even though the odds on the night appear infinitely low, it is always a non-zero number because we can all remember times when we got a late night tap on the shoulder in the face of long odds. In fact, it probably would have paid off to play the lottery instead.”

To give a sense for how this plays out in a typical evening, assume husband A walks in the house feeling he has even odds on the night, or a 50% probability of a happy ending to the evening given that the midday call went well. He says, “Hello” and his wife says, “hey.” Odds have now dropped to 43% because her voice inflection was low and it wasn’t they typically chipper version of the evening welcome. Husband A then asks, “How was your day?” Wife A then responds, “terrible.” Again, not good, and the odds get another haircut to 30%. Husband A then says, “Can you tell me about it?” Wife A then goes into emotional download that involves a variety of issues pushing the odds ever closer to zero. But then she ends with, “…but I feel pretty good about everything.” Odds have just improved to maybe 15%. She then says, “And I did get to sit down for a few minutes before the kids got home from school, and the kids got most of their homework done before they got home so that wasn’t too bad, and dinner didn’t take very long…” Odds just improved to like 33%. Not great, but a big move from almost zero at the low. This example also gives you some sense for the emotional highs and lows we husbands feel on a daily basis.

A note to the young men: there are two periods of time when your probability calculator will give mis-readings. The first is when your wife wants to get pregnant and the second is when you have a baby in the house. If your wife wants a baby, then nothing will stop her. So don’t think you have things figured out, and don’t incorporate queues from this time period into your later statistical framework. The other time when your model will not produce good numbers is when you have a new baby in the house and your wife is going through a hormone overhaul. During this period, I don’t need to know a thing about your wife to know your odds are better playing the lottery.

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved

I thought middle-age was going to be different than this. Not sure exactly what I expected. I’m more fit and have a little more hair than I thought I would. I guess it’s not the physical ailments, but my perspective of all the little things around me each day that are different.

When I was young I thought I would be fatter and balder than I turned out. My hobbies keep me in decent shape, and my thinning hair issue is more an exercise in damage control aided by my religious and generous use of Rogaine. I really didn’t think my eye-sight would start to go at 43, but it has. I can read just fine, but I can’t see far away anymore which means I wave to people I don’t know and ignore the ones I do know. It also means I don’t notice attractive women from afar anymore because I really can’t see them. My wife is fine with this, and I don’t need to be ‘noticing’ other women anyway. In my youth when I would notice a woman walking in front of me with thin hips and a fit physique I would think to myself, “she looks pretty good.” Now the only two things that comes to mind is 1. I hope her dad doesn’t see her in that. 2. She’s gonna have c-section babies. Middle-age perspective.

I didn’t expect to be this tired. I feel like I walk around exhausted and kept awake by a steady caffeine drip. This might be alright if I could catch up on sleep over the weekend. When I was younger I thought I would be about 80-years-old when I stopped sleeping until 10:00 am on the weekends. The reality is that “sleeping in” means waking up by 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning regardless of how tired I am. Some guys my age start having to get up 3 or 4 times a night, but I don’t have that problem. In fact, I am usually so tired that some nights I don’t move at all. So, instead of worrying how many times I may have to get up each night, I’m more concerned about not waking up and wetting the bed.

Last Sunday, I noticed a man walking his 4-year-old twin daughters into church. After thinking about how cute they looked and admiring their smock dresses, all I could think about was how tired that guy must be, what a beating it must be to buy two of everything and wondering how much they spent on diapers. I also couldn’t help but notice his wife wasn’t with him. She was likely still in bed feeling like she had been shot with a tranquilizer gun. But I noticed the girls’ hair did look good, he didn’t do that so the mom had to have been awake at some point. Middle-age perspective…

And although my pop culture is a little rusty, and I sometimes make the girl at the grocery store card me, and the waiter didn’t get my Seinfeld joke/reference at dinner the other night, there are a few positives to getting older other than a Netflix account through my kids’ Wii. When I go to a restaurant with my girls I no longer have to get on my knees to clean up enough food to feed three refugee families they would drop on the floor during dinner. Middle-age perspective…

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved