Recently, three of us guys were granted an afternoon to ourselves as our spouses discussed breast pumps and pitocin over Tupperware. We joked as we were leaving them that we were going to a strip club. Like hell. I remember the discussion as we drove around looking for a quiet place to eat lunch.
"Right there," Brian said, nodded toward a mall to his left so he could keep both hands on the wheel. "That's the store where we got the piece of crap crib."
"I sense hostility," I said from the back seat, in my best imitation of a psychiatrist. "Tell me more about how you feel about the crib."
Brian raised a lone middle finger from the wheel. "No, the crib is great. I just don't I understand why we needed to get it right now. I mean, we just had the baby and we already have a cradle right next to the bed -"
"- But for the most part," interrupted Dave, whose wife was pregnant at the time so he'd been reading a lot, "the baby is basically sleeping with you guys all night anyway -"
"- And the crib is in the baby's room, so when we put the baby in the crib," Brian jumped back in, "she can't sleep because she's worried about the baby."
"Figures," I said. I'd read the same books as Dave, so I knew what they were talking about, but Cheri and I had decided to adopt - in few years. She and I got married less than six months ago. "So, why didn't you say something?"
Brian just looked at me for second. "Oh, that's right, you're still a newlywed. I could tell it wasn't worth mentioning. Don't get me wrong I love her, but we've been married five years - basically, I do what she tells me to do. She tells me take out the garbage, I take out the garbage. She says it's time buy a crib, I go buy a crib. And when she gets tired of me and can't think of anything else for me to do, I'm sure she'll tell me to lie down and die, and I'll do that too. (falsetto) 'Okay, honey, go outside and dig nice deep hole in the back yard... Good. Lie down in it... great. Now stop breathing... Good.'"
The conversation lagged for a minute. Then a shit-eating grin spread across Dave's face. "Of course, you know five minutes later you'd be up, tracking mud into the kitchen, (Homer Simpson imitation) 'Sweetie, now what was I supposed to be - ' (falsetto screaming) 'What?!? God damn it! What's wrong with you?!? Do I have to do everything myself around here? I ask you to do one simple thing! One simple thing and you can't even do that! Look at this floor! Are you trying to ruin my day? Oh, never mind! Just get the mop. Then go fix that hole in the yard.'"