Authors-choice: Hope & Revival

For a thousand years, married couples have tried to understand themselves  without success. Today, we are glad to announce that it is now possible. Reading The  WOMEN’s secret list, all men can understand why their wives treat them the way they do (please find below and don’t fail to read the rules). We are grateful to the female turncoat who passed it to us.

Rules

Remember, just one rule applies: Make your wife happy. If you do something she likes, you get points. If you do something she dislikes, points are subtracted. If your point total is positive, she will be happy. If it is negative, she will be unhappy. If she is unhappy, you will also be unhappy. Remember this. If your point total is zero, the expectant and very attentive gaze that so many men hate will dominate your life. Oh, there is one more little thing: You don’t get any points for doing something nice that she expects you to do.

The List

At a Party

• You stay by her side the entire party: +10
• You stay by her side for a while, then leave to chat with an old college drinking buddy: -2
• Named Tiffany: -10
• Who is an “exotic dancer:” -25
• With implants: -75

Birthdays and Anniversaries
• You remember her birthday or your anniversary: +3
• You buy a card and flowers: +10
• You give her a gift: 0 (remember, you’re expected to do this)
• You give her a gift, and it’s small appliance: -10
• You give her a gift, and it’s not a small appliance: +1
• You give her a gift, and it’s not chocolate: +2
• You give her a gift that you’ll be paying off for months: +30
• You wait until the last minute and buy her a gift that day: -10
• With her credit card: -30
• At the nearest 7-11: -40
• And whatever you bought is two sizes too big: -50
• Two sizes too small: +200
• You take her out to dinner: 0
• You take her out to dinner and it’s not a sports bar: +10
• Okay, it’s a sports bar named Bo’s Belly Barn: -10
• And it’s all you can eat night: -15
• It’s a sports bar named Bo’s Belly Barn, where you both eat at the all you can eat bar, and e place just coincidentally happens to be featuring a game involving your favorite team, d you paint your face the colors of this team, and you get stupid drunk: -50
• You go to a nice, pricey restaurant and hire a guitar player: +10
• You go to a nice, pricey restaurant, hire a guitar player and get up and sing: +15
• And you stink: +12
• And you are not half bad: +25

Thoughtfulness
• You buy her flowers only when it’s expected: 0
• You buy her flowers as a surprise, just for the heck of it: +5
• You give her wildflowers you’ve actually picked yourself: +10
• And she contracts Lyme disease: -25
• You forget to pick her up at the bus station after she visits her mother: 15
• The bus station is in Newark, New Jersey: -25
• When it is pouring rain: -35
• Which dissolves her leg cast: -50

A Night Out with the Boys
• You go out with a pal: -2
• The pal is happily married: +1
• With kids: +1 per kid
• The pal is single: -5
• He drives a Ferrari: -10
• With a personalized license plate that reads GR8NBED: -15
• You have more than a few and perform the tango with a poodle while wearing a toilet seat around your neck: -20
• You have lots of drinks and vaguely remember a ride in the back of an unfamiliar car with uniformed men, and being fingerprinted: -35
• Is that a tattoo???: -200

A Night Out with Her
• You take her to see a movie: +2
• You take her to see a movie she likes: +4
• You take her to see a movie you hate: +6
• You take her to see a movie you like: -2
• Which is called “Death Cop III: Bone Storm:” 12
• Which features cyborgs that eat people after horribly mangling them: -20
• And you told her it was a foreign language film about war orphans and nuns: -50

Saturday Afternoon
• You go to the mall together: +3
• You go to the mall, drop her off at the entrance, then park the car: +4
• You go to the mall, drop her at the entrance, then drive to a sports bar: -2
• You spend the day shopping for furniture and pretend to like it: +3
• You tackle a large household project, such as painting the den: +15
• Or refinishing the floors: +20
• Or rewiring the basement: +25
• Or adding a second floor: +50
• Or setting up a Nerf Ball hoop over the bathroom wastebasket: 6
• And you are tickled pink about it: -15
• You spend the afternoon watching college football in your underwear: -6
• And you didn’t even go to college: -10

Grooming and Exercise
• You trim your nails: +5
• You trim your nails in the living room: -10
• You trim your nails and flick them at the cat: -15
• You trim your nails by biting them and then spitting them at the cat: -25
• You shave on the weekends: +2
• You don’t shave on the weekends: -4
• You don’t bathe on the weekends: -8
• But then, neither does she: +8
• You develop a noticeable pot belly: -15
• You develop a noticeable pot belly and diligently exercise to get rid of it: +20
• You develop a noticeable pot belly and resort to loose jeans and baggy Hawaiian shirts to cover it up: -30
• You point at her and say, “Hey, look! Twins!” -800

The Baby
• You offer to feed and change the baby, but immediately fall back asleep: -5
• You actually feed and change the baby in the middle of the night: +5
• You feed the baby and clean her up, but forget to put a new diaper on her: -10
• You accidentally put beer in the baby’s bottle, thereby guaranteeing a good night’s sleep for the whole family: -0.1
• You put the baby out and feed and change the cat: -50

The Car
• You keep your car, minivan or pickup truck reasonably clean and gassed up, with the tires properly inflated and all necessary fluids at their proper levels: +5/week
• Your car, minivan or pickup truck is so filthy that she can’t find the shift knob and can hardly see out of the windows, plus the carpet is so grungy you could cut it up and feed the dog with it: 10/week
• You make sure there are barely enough fumes in the car to make it to the nearest gas station: -1
• Your car conks out at the side of the road and you fix the problem immediately: +10
• Your car conks out at the side of the road and you mess around under the hood without a clue as to what you are doing for two full hours, and finally use her cell phone to call a tow truck:- 25
• You have personally tuned and upgraded your car to the point where it can reach sixty miles per hour in five seconds flat, but you don’t know how to fix the dishwasher when it goes on the blink: -15
• Your car’s transmission conks out, you pull it out and disassemble it, but leave the whole thing in the bathtub: -50
• There are dead cars in your driveway or front yard: 5 per car per week
• There is a dead school bus in your driveway or front yard: -50 per week
• You lose the directions on a road trip: -4
• You lose the directions and end up getting lost: -10
• You end up getting lost in a really bad part of town: -15
• And meet the locals up close and personal: -25
• And she finds out you lied about having a black belt:- 60

The Dreaded Question: “Am I Gaining Weight?”
• You answer “absolutely not, you are the same slim girl you were when we were dating:” -5, because she knows you are lying, but it is a nice lie
• You hesitate before responding: -10
• You ask “Where?:” -35
• Any other response: -20 (as you can see, this is a always a no win situation for the husband)

When She Wants to Talk About Her Feelings or a Problem
• You listen, displaying a concerned expression: +2
• You listen for over 30 minutes: +5
• You relate to her problem and share a similar experience: +50
• You give her suggestions on how to fix her problem by adjusting her personality: -50
• Your mind wanders to sports and you suddenly hear her saying “Well, what do you think I should do?:” -10 to -20, depending on your answer
• You have fallen asleep: -50

Household Chores
• You make the bed: +1
• You make the bed, but forget to replace the decorative pillows: 0
• You throw the bedspread over rumpled sheets: -1
• You wash the sheets and pillowcases: +5
• You sleep on the sheets until they are greasier than a slab of raw bacon: -10
• You do all of the dishes: +10
• You load up the dishwasher, but leave the greasy pots for her: -5
• You load up the dishwasher, but let the dog have his licks first: -25
• You leave the toilet seat up: -5
• You replace the toilet paper roll when it is empty: +2
• When the toilet paper roll is empty, you resort to Kleenex or paper towels: -10
• When the Kleenex runs out you use the next bathroom: 20
• You go out to buy her favorite ice cream in the middle of a snowstorm: +2
• But return with beer: 5
• And no ice cream: 25
• You check out a suspicious noise at night: +2
• You check out a suspicious noise and it is something: +5
• You pummel it with a baseball bat: +10
• It’s her cat: 40
• It’s her mother: 150

Disgusting Jobs
• You unclog a stopped up toilet: +6
• You clean out the refrigerator: +10
• You clean up cat, dog or human vomit or other bodily fluids: +7
• You get rid of a dead rodent: +8
• You visit her parents: +1
• You visit her parents and actually make conversation: +3
• You visit her parents and stare vacantly at the television: -3
• And the television is off: -6
• You take her mother to see “Cats”: +350

And Now, It’s the Men’s Turn …

We always hear about the rules from the female side. Here are the rules from the men’s side. If you heed these rules, your man will be happy, and so will you.
Please note: These are all numbered “1” on purpose!

(1) Men are NOT mind readers.
(1) Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
(1) Sunday sports — It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
(1) Crying is blackmail.
(1) Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints DO NOT WORK! Just SAY it!
(1) Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
(1) Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
(1) Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.
(1) If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us. IT’S A TRAP!!!
(1) If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
(1) You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done — not both! If you already know how to do it, just do it yourself.
(1) Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
(1) Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions — and neither do we.
(1) ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve or puce is.
(1) If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
(1) If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” We will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you’re lying, but it is just not worth the hassle trying to figure out what the hell it is.
(1) If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
(1) When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine … Really!
(1) Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, football, cars or golf.
(1) You have enough clothes.
(1) You have too many shoes.
(1) I am in shape. Pear IS a shape!
(1) Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight — but did you know men really don’t mind that? It’s like camping!