Manic Motherhood: Communication 101

Manic Motherhood

Recently a study from Northwestern University revealed that girls have a built-in neurological advantage over boys in that girls have better use of language. I swear, the people conducting the research had to have been a bunch of men raised on a deserted island who have never, ever talked to a female before. Because, frankly, you don't need an expensive study to confirm what everyone on the planet knows. Women are more verbally communicative than men.

Seriously. Look, let's say you're a married housewife in a small city we'll call Manic Motherhood Town (hey, it's my city, I get to name it). Your husband comes home from work, plops a bottle of wine on the counter and says, "I saw Joe today." Now, to a man this conversation is done. He's handed over the gift, the bottle of wine presumably from Joe, and he's imparted all the information he believes necessary to accompany the gift.

The woman on the other hand, has many things racing through her mind. "What kind of wine is it? Who is Joe? Were the bottles properly sterilized before the wine was corked or are we all going to die of a weird disease the minute the bottle is opened? What time is it? Is hubby home early? Could that mean he lost his job? Or is he late? Is he having an affair? Is that wine purple? Or is it just the bottle? Do they even make purple wine? Is that dinner I smell burning or is it just the kids' science fair project? Did hubby get the wine from Joe or is that completely unrelated? Should I open it now or is it good enough to keep and drink when our best friends come over? Or should I save it for someone really special like that PTA mom whose fanny I've been kissing all week in an effort to get out of doing the stupid cookie dough sale?"

Do you see what I mean? The researchers had to be male. And they had to never have been in a relationship with an actual woman. And it goes without saying they never brought wine home from Joe. And clearly they have never once spent an hour in my house.

You see, in my house, hubby comes home and I start to tell him a story. And just as I'm getting to the good part, his eyes will start to glaze over and he will begin fidgeting. And then I will suddenly have an urgent need to leave in the middle of my narrative because the smoke alarm is going off and that means dinner is ready. After dinner, when I remember about my unfinished story (the one hubby has spent all of the meal hoping I will forget), I resume my tale. It usually it goes something like this:

"Today, I went to Kohl's. I wasn't going to go, but Grandma called and she said it was the four days when you get 15%, 20% or 30% off if you use your charge card. You have to use these little scratcher things that look like lottery scratchers. Anyway, I went to Kohl's and I found some really cute shoes, but they didn't have my size. So I tried a couple more pairs and found ones I liked, but not too much. But I figured that if I got 20% off, they would be really cute. So I took them to the counter and I scratched off my card and I only got 15% off. Well, at that point, I just didn't know. I mean, at 20% off they were cute, but at 15% off, not so much. So I decided to run into Target and they had a great sale on food containers. So I bought a ton because last week I noticed that all our old ones were getting yucky inside. And then I went to Costco and I got you a big tub of those carrots you enjoy. And while I was there, I ran into my friend April, who had on the very same shoes from Kohl's that I had really liked and couldn't find in my size. And she said that they had just restocked them.So I bought your carrots and ran back to Kohl's. And they had them in my size. And you'll never guess what else happened! At the register, I picked another scratch-off card and I got 30%! For the super cute shoes!"

And hubby will look at me, sigh and say, "so you got new shoes today?"

--Laurie Sontag is the author of the popular blog, Manic Motherhood, at http://lauriesontag.com. Her work has appeared in numerous books and magazines and she has been a humor columnist for California newspapers since 2001.