Women Need More and Different Things

 

Now that I am retired, I have a little more disposable time on my hands, and I am starting to notice things that I had never even once considered.  This new awareness may cause problems in our marriage because I have no business asking about things I know nothing about.  I am noticing that men and women have very different needs. 

For example, my too kind and loving wife needs more cotton balls.  I don’t know what I would ever use cotton balls for, but she recently bought a Costco bag with at least a jillion in it.  And then she puts them in little mini containers in the three bathrooms with the big bag in the storage room as back up.  I spend quite a bit of time in the bathroom, and I have never once thought I needed a cotton ball. I don’t dare ask what she might need them for.

Another example and I say this with all the love a man can have for a woman.  She needs more candles than I do.  She definitely needs more candles...she has three in every bathroom in our house and several on the kitchen counter and some in the nice living room and pink ones for girl birthdays and blue ones for boy birthdays and some for Christmas.  Recently, she bought a seven-branched candelabrum; I haven’t been told that we converted to Judaism. 

I have one emergency candle that I have had for nearly 37 years, and it has moved with me ever since I lived in the married student housing at the University of Utah.  Apparently, I have never had an emergency worthy of me actually lighting the candle, but I have it.  And I wouldn’t recommend lighting matches in the bathroom anyway…for obvious reasons.

My too kind and loving wife needs more water bottles too.  I have one nice utilitarian black one that is older than most of my kids.  She has the seven she keeps on the kitchen counter, two in each car, one to work out with, one to take on short trips and a bigger one to take on long trips, and a box of others in the garage that I can only assume have been retired.

She needs lots of lip care products.  She has on her person within an arm’s length on any given day; lip stick (a jillion colors), lip balm, lip liner, Vaseline, lip gloss and a dozen flavors of Chapstick.  I can safely say I have never used any lip care products. 

She needs more time to get ready, more time in the bathroom, time with her sisters, and more time to get in the car.  She needs items to care for her toenails.  She needs more time to talk about feelings, more cuddling, more back rubs…that are limited to the back, she needs more products for her hair.  I get one cheap shampoo.

She needs more ointments.  I am not sure what ointments are for, but I am pretty sure the only time I have ever needed an ointment it involved a doctor and latex gloves, and it took over 50 years to convince me.

She needs more shoes.  She has shoes for specific occasions or days.  She has bought shoes that match a certain dress and that is it.  They can’t be worn on any other occasion.  To my knowledge one pair of shoes was worn for a wedding and never since.  We built a special closet in our house just for her shoes.  I am not allowed in it.  I have a black pair of dress shoes…these have been in my possession for nearly 15 years.  They have been used for every funeral, wedding, baptism, and job interview I have attended in that time. 

She needs products specifically for exfoliation.  I locked the bathroom door before I googled what that was because I was pretty sure it wasn’t even legal in Utah.  I am still undecided if men exfoliate by themselves and what would be the consequences of frequent exfoliation.

She needs things to put on shelves and counter tops like pictures, porcelain things, brass things, gold things, and wood statues without faces or features.

Retirement hasn’t been easy for me.  I thought I would have plenty of time to write my novel, learn a new language, learn how to play the piano, and travel.  But mostly I just eat and go to the mail and drive around town looking at projects that people are working on.  I promised Pard and Sandy I would keep track of things when they were gone.  I caught Terril tearing down his mom and dad’s house…I let them know right away.