Sweet Fancy Moses! It's The Christmas Gift Buying Guide!

We all think we are good at something.  Sometimes, we truly are.  Like Colonel Sanders at cooking chicken, Tim Tebow at “Tebowing” or William Shakespeare at writing commercial jingles.  Other times, we are deeply convinced we are good at something when, in a reality plain to everyone else, we suck.  You know, how Elaine believed she could dance or Ashlee Simpson thought she could sing. 

Gift giving is my thing.  In my heart I think I’m Santa Claus.  However, I hope I’m really not just a “dry heave set to music”.  With that in mind, here is The Keep A Happy Wife Christmas Gift Buying Guide or KAHWCGBG for short (although that is not very short).

Plan Ahead: This is a recurring Keep A Happy Wife theme.  Use that smart phone for more than checking football scores and playing Words with Friends against Alec Baldwin.  Throughout the year, When The Wife mentions liking something on a commercial, I’ll add it to a note on my phone.  If she sees something in a store, I’ll wait until she’s not looking and snap a photo of it.  By the time you get to Christmas, the list is done. If, however, you are reading this now and have not already bought a gift for your wife, then it may be too late for “plan ahead”.  However, this is also “harvest season” for gift ideas.  Follow her around the mall for awhile, see what she picks up and says “ooh, I like that”.  For the dense among us, that is your clue. 

Lingerie: Let’s be honest. When a man is buying gifts for his wife, the temptation is always there to make lingerie a part of the equation.  We have a tradition in our marriage, where I buy The Wife pajamas every Christmas that she can open and wear on Christmas Eve.  These are normal person pajamas and are not inspired by the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.  Beyond that example, the lingerie rules discussed in this link should be considered.  One other thing, you don’t really want to spend Christmas Day having “the talk” with your 8-year old because they saw mommy opening a present from you.  

The Event Gift: One of my favorite gifts to give is “The Event Gift”.  No, that is not the DVD of the complete first (and only) season of the horrible TV show called “The Event”.  The Event Gift is a trip or theater or concert tickets.  It is not a Fandango gift card or tickets to “the gun show” (stop flexing, brother).   The Event Gift is like two, two, two gifts in one.  It is a gift on Christmas morning (and if you chose well, then it will be the hit gift of the Holiday Season) but it is also a gift at the time of the event itself.  What a value!  Plus, it is an opportunity to spend time with The Wife and make some memories (that’s not an intentional euphemism, but if it applies…so be it). If your spouse is a “quality time” person, then this may be a good gift route for you to take, too.  The Event Gift has been a real success with The Wife.  This blog post and this one about last Christmas’ event gift is a good example of that.

Gift Receipt: If you remember nothing else from this blog, remember this: Always ask for a gift receipt.  It only took a couple of Christmases of hearing “I love it.  Did you keep the receipt?” to figure that one out.  Of course, you can’t get a gift receipt for an “Event Gift” or a personally engraved Flava Flav watch-necklace…so be careful there.  Including the gift receipt in the box avoids the awkward request from The Wife for it and tells her “I really tried to find you something you’d love, but in case I “pulled an Elaine” on this one take it back and get something you want”.  Who knew a receipt could be so chatty?

Say It: Christmas shopping can be a pain the gluteus, especially for us dudes.  It can drain your Christmas Cheer faster than being middle aged can lower your testosterone levels (at least what they say on TV).  So to keep it up – the Christmas Cheer, that is – say “Merry Christmas”.  To less-than-helpful sales clerks, to self-absorbed shoppers, to parking-space-stealing buttheads…say “Merry Christmas”.  It will help you keep the Christmas Cheer for yourself and spread it to others as well.  Or you could just take Elf’s advice and sing “loudly for all to hear”. 

For more gift buying tips (What Not To Do), see the Review, Previews and Insightful Commentary section of this blog! 

May all the gifts you give this year be "finger-lickin' good".

From myself, The Wife, The Tall One and The Short One: Merry Christmas to you and yours! 

Half A Lifetime

I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said “Statistics are like a bikini.  What they reveal is suggestive.  What they conceal is vital.”  That’s not really relevant, but I liked the quote.  Any time you can mis-attribute a quote to Lincoln and mention “bikini” in the same sentence…well that is a great way to start a blog post. 

Statistics is not the subject today, but I have some interesting stats about the way we spend our time in life. 

• The average person lives 77 years.  28,000 days.  670,000 hours.  40,000,000 minutes.
• A total of 23 years of that time, we are asleep.  If that’s the case, all need to have better dreams.
• 12 years are spent working.
• 3 years are spent eating.
• 6 months are spent on the toilet, though your mileage may vary.
• 10 years are spent talking – women maybe more, men maybe less.
• 3 years are spent waiting on something – women maybe less, men maybe more (waiting on women).
• 1 year, on average, is spent praying.
• 2 years are spent on the phone.

I’m a man.  I’m forty…four.  Twenty-two years ago today The Wife and I were married.  Half of my life I have been married.  What have any of us done for half of our lives?  Besides the things you learned before you were five (feed yourself, go boom-boom in the potty, read, etc.) what have you done for half of your life? 

I do not remember not being married.  I don’t mean that I have no memories before November 18, 1989.  I mean I don’t remember what it is like to not be married.  And that’s a good thing.

I remember what it was like not having cell phones and personal computers - we used a home phone, we had conversations with people, wrote letters to friends and used an encyclopedia (Who was the last encyclopedia salesman you knew?  Fonzie?).

I remember when the local paper was the primary source of news – we’ve now gone from under-informed to information overload. 

I remember when every other movie wasn’t a sequel, a remake or gimmicked into being 3D – yes, you had to have an idea to make a movie.

I remember when TV commercials didn’t show models in their underwear – I won’t comment further on grounds of self-incrimination.

I do not remember not being married, though.  And that’s a good thing (at least I think it’s still a good thing.  The Wife gets the underwear model thing is a joke, right?)

Our first meal together as a married couple, The Wife and I ate a Wendy’s in Chattanooga as we were driving to Disney World for our honeymoon.  Tonight we’ll celebrate our anniversary in a dining room at Churchill Downs.

Since being married, we have lived at 8 different addresses and 5 different cities.  We have actually lived in Louisville longer than any other place. 

We have two kids and I don’t remember not having them around either.  That, too, is a good thing.  The Tall One showed up nearly 18 years ago and The Short One a little more than 13 years ago.  Forty percent of my life as a parent?  Seems longer.

Wherever we have lived and whatever challenges we have faced and changes we’ve ridden through…I have been blessed.  Abraham Lincoln once said: “Happy wife…happy life”.  If that is a true saying, then The Wife must be one ecstatic woman. Happy anniversary, honey.

Love, Regret & the Worst Commercial Ever

Bad television commercials are plentiful.  As plentiful as sand in the Sahara, losing lotto tickets or dropped calls by AT&T.  Speaking of AT&T...your personal least favorite commercial may be the Head On! commercial, or the Hardee’s commercial where the lady puts her fist in her mouth or the creepy Burger King ads where you wake up to find the king in bed with you.  You can take all of those, toss in every erectile dysfunction ad, feminine protection commercial and political campaign spot and there is no commercial worse than this one.

This commercial deals with a husband excitedly telling his wife about getting unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes. The wife is disgusted that he did this without discussing it with her and mumbles her regret: “My mother was right.  I should have married John Clark”.  The husband, crushed by his shrew of a wife, replies “It was free”.  What was edited out of the ad was the expletive that should have followed, as in: “It was free, B*@#!”. 

To address the commercial itself, I don’t know what AT&T was thinking.  To begin with, it doesn’t project a good image for the company – you’re a cell phone company, AT&T, you need all the image help you can get.  The ad is about free mobile to mobile minutes, a program targeted to families, but the wife’s response is about as anti-family as you can get.  I suppose she could have said “I’m sleeping with John Clark.  He works for AT&T so I already have that feature”.  That would have been worse.

They have enough money to afford a large greenhouse.  A greenhouse?  Who has a greenhouse?  Yet, she’s goes nuclear (or as George W would say “noo-coo-lur”) over a cell phone plan.  Bottom line: Worst.  Commercial.  Ever.

What can we learn here?  First, the problem this whipped ol’ boy faces could have been solved had he heeded the wisdom in the Keep A Happy Wife Guys’ first blog post.  Choose the right spouse! 

Second, you can also choose your focus.  The “something else” always has the potential to look better to you if that is where you target your focus.  George Costanza obsessed over Marisa Tomei and put at risk his engagement with Susan.  In this case, the “something else” was better, so…bad example.  Anyway, normal life will prove my point to be still valid. 

Making a conscious effort to remember why you love your spouse will help keep the “something else” from creeping in.  The Greenhouse Harpy has clearly decided to romanticize about how her life would be better with John Clark rather than focusing on the positives of her life with her husband.  Am I suggesting you ignore problems in your marriage?  Of course not.  However, the focus of your life can’t be just the problems or the perceived short-comings.  That only leads to regret.  Regret leads to sadness.  Sadness leads to pain. Pain leads to b*@#!-ness.  I think Yoda said that.

Here’s a practical example of choosing your focus.  Recently, The Wife and I pulled out some old photos.  Many of these turned out to be from the late 80s – early 2000’s.  Photos old enough that I was skinny. We saw me go from clean shaven to full nappy beard to clean shave to bad stache to clean shaven to full beard to clean shaven again to goatee.  My purpose in this was not to reminisce about the history of facial hair, but was to see how our kids have grown up.  The Tall One being in his senior year in high school is starting to sink in (“What is this salty discharge?” – Jerry).  However, as we were digging through pictures it brought to mind many happy times that The Wife and I have shared.  Even back in the college days (where we went from her tolerating me to not wanting to have anything to do with me to loving me forever) and the early days of our marriage we could see good times and how we made it through some tough ones.  Different houses, different friends, different churches, different careers, different cities.  The constant was me and The Wife. 

Are there things I would do differently?  Absolutely.  There were some obviously poor fashion choices and I should have worked in a few more salads over the years.  Is there anything I regret?  Absolutely not. 

I feel like the guy with the radio voice should now say: “Life…what a beautiful choice”.

How Do You Roll?

Stevie Winwood sang “Roll With It”, Adele gave us “Rolling In The Deep” and Busta Rhymes told us “How We Roll” – and you only thought I knew songs that were at least 20 years old!  But the question today is: “How do you roll?”  Or more importantly, how does your wife want you to roll?

No I’m not talking about how to cope when life is too much, and certainly not regrettable relationships or criminal activity.  When I ask, “How Do You Roll?” I’m referring to toilet paper.  Specifically, are you an “Over-roller” or an “Under-roller”?

While this is more a “style points” issue (really, if you are in an emergency situation you’ll settle for finding someone who can spare a square) and it is certainly less critical than what side of the bed you choose, but a mixed marriage between an “Over-roller” and an “Under-roller” can create challenges.  Fortunately, The Wife and I are both “Over-Rollers”.  However, I can see how an argument can occur where a wife (but not The Wife) is listing a long list of grievances against her husband only to crescendo to “and you roll the toilet paper the wrong way!!!!”.  You know you’ve reached a pathetic point of frustration in your relationship when you’ve “kitchen sinked” an argument with toilet-paper-rolling.  (Or maybe you’ve just reached a point of moronic blogging when you choose this as a topic to write about).

If people are “Overs” or “Unders” it is ingrained like part of your DNA.  It’s like being a Republican or a Democrat, an I-phone or a Blackberry user, a Vegetarian or a normal person – you are typically one or the other – and if you are “one” you are not comfortable with “the other”.  If you are a lifetime “Over” and you encounter a roll that is “under”, it feels a bit like trying to write left-handed (assuming you’re a righty).  You just shake your head and wonder at the roll “What kind of people would do something like this?  I bet they don’t even eat chicken!”.

Other than the occasional “Under-roller”, there are two problems in the world of toilet paper these days.  First, is TMI: Too Much Information.  I’m not sure what bears have to do with toilet paper, but I am sure that if I were to actually take a walk in the woods I would not find a roll of toilet paper hung (over or under) on a low-level branch.  We don’t need to see images like this one.

The second problem is the packaging of toilet paper.  A convenient 96-roll pack is not convenient at all.  You should not have to load it in your car with a fork lift or buy a shed for your back yard to store it in.  You’ll likely be thinking as you balance the box-car sized package on your shopping cart: “Maybe I have too much fiber in my diet?”  Can we not have a reasonably-sized pack of toilet paper that doesn’t make you feel like you might need to use the product as you strain to lift it out of the trunk?

As you consider this topic in your marriage (and my hope for you is that this is the only problem you have to deal with) keep these things in mind.  Come to agreement on style.  Guys, if you need to concede to being an “under roller” ‘til death do you part in exchange for brand of ketchup or priority use of the remote…do it! 

Be well stocked.  Buying by the gross can help make sure you don’t run out.  However, that doesn’t always allow for convenient storage and access on demand.  You need to replenish inventory before you pluck the last roll from the backyard shed.

Do unto others.   This is even more important than rolling in the proper direction.  Nobody wants to find themselves needing to “complete their paperwork” and be staring at a cardboard tube. If you peel the roll perilously close to the core, whether rolled “over” or “under”, make sure a fresh roll is handy.  Don’t leave your spouse hanging (or in this case, “sitting”).  This is one more little but important tip to Keep a Happy Wife.

The Emmy's Are Tomorrow. I'll Be Watching Football.

The Emmy’s are tomorrow (Sunday) night.  I thought since I did a special blog for the Oscars I should do one for the Emmy’s.  Don’t count on seeing a blog dedicated to the Grammy’s.  I gave up on the Grammy’s when Starlight Vocal Band beat out Boston for best new artist in 1977 (I hold a grudge).  Don’t count on a blog for the Tony’s either, because I’m not gay.

The first category is “Best Show That’s No Longer a Show”.  The nominees are:

• Chase
• Friday Night Lights
• The Good Guys
• Human Target

The winner: Friday Night Lights.  It was a great show.  Eric and Tami Taylor (Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton) were one of the most honest portrayals of a married couple ever on TV.  Football was simply the backdrop for one of the best dramas in recent memory.  Human Target and Chase were solid dramas that had runs of two or three seasons.  The Good Guys was a very funny take on the “buddy cop” show.  Starring Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks, it is worth watching its lone season on Netflix.

The next category is Funniest Show.  The nominees are:

• 30 Rock
• Modern Family
• Psych
• Raising Hope

The winner: Modern Family.  It is the best written show on TV since Cheers.  30 Rock is “rock” solid competition for it, but Modern Family is consistently funny every single episode.  Psych (USA) is a lot of fun for the family (and those of us who love references to the 80s).  Raising Hope is extremely clever in its own right.

Let’s look at Best Drama.  The nominees are:

• Castle
• Hawaii Five-O
• Justified
• The Mentalist

The winner: Justified.  As an FX network show, it has a bit more of an edge to it than these others.  As you might imagine, stories about a US Marshall trying to enforce law and order in Kentucky mining country can be more than a little rough and tumble.  It is well written in that the story lines are fresh and not telegraphed at all.  The Mentalist and Castle are both fun, out-of-the-ordinary crime dramas.  Hawaii Five-O was a pleasant surprise last year as it reinvented the late 1960s.

Shows Other People Like But I Don’t Really Get.  The nominees are:

• Glee
• Mad Men
• Numbers

The winner is Mad Men.  Mad Men has few (if any) likable characters.  The constant smoking and drinking by the characters is a worn-out inside joke.   It has a loyal fan base, however, and critics seem to love it – just not me.  Glee is a show I refuse to watch.  Quit letting questionably-talented no-names butcher good songs.  I don’t see how Numbers is still on the air.  How is a drama about a “Rain Man” kind of math savant of any interest to America?  What’s the story line here: The cops are out at dinner and need somebody to calculate the tip on the check so they call the Numbers Guy?  Again, I don’t get it.

Shows That Have Lasted Way Too Long.  The nominees are:

• Chuck
• 2 Broke Girls
• Every Reality Show

The winner is: Every Reality Show.  Whether it’s American Idol or Survivor or Big Brother or Hoarders -  get rid of them.  They are cheap to make and very profitable for the networks, but they are just played.  There is actually an Emmy category now for Best Reality TV Host.  These shows substitute another human’s real pain and anxiety for writing creativity.  Chuck has been on for 5 years now.  That is two or three too many.  It started out as a very witty and fun show.  Now it is just bad.  2 Broke Girls actually doesn’t start until this fall.  However, it looks just horrible.  Put it out of its misery before it inflicts any misery on the viewing public.

As I’ve thought about the Emmy’s, I cannot remember what the Emmy trophy looks like.  The Oscars are the gold statue dude.  The Grammy’s are the old phonograph.  The Tony’s are a guy in high heels with a feather boa.  But what are the Emmy’s?  At any rate, nothing quite as self-serving as TV people having a TV show where they give awards to other TV people. 

For my preview of the new show for this Fall, click here and scroll to the post on 9/7/11.

The Triple Take on Sports this post is dedicated to The Short One in honor of his birthday.

"Thank You": It's Like a Life Saver, but Not a Junior Mint

Seacrest, out.  Way out.

Get out your pencil and paper and let’s start out this post with a little quiz.  Stop groaning and whining or you’ll stay after school to clap erasers.  (OK…if you remember what “clap erasers” was, then raise your hand.  Judging from the response, I’ll need to increase the font size of my next post.  Perhaps I can sell ad space to Ensure).  Here is the quiz.  It is only one multiple choice question, so it is pass or fail.

What is the most important two-word phrase in the English language?

A. Party on.

B. I’m pregnant.

C. Seacrest, out.

D. Thank you.

I suppose a case could be made for any of the four (no fair writing in “E. All of the above”).  However, the correct response for most important two-word phrase in the English language is “D. Thank you.”  We could also say the German language (“Danke schoen”) but if I used that phrase then I’d have to pay royalties to Wayne Newton and I’m pretty sure he has mob ties.  Or we could say the Japanese Language (“Domo Arigato”) but that reminds me of the Styx song, ”Mr. Roboto” and I hate that song. 

Saying “thank you” is a fundamental part of our interactions in society.  When we stop saying “thank you” we are no better than cavemen, the Mongul hordes (which we learned from Bill and Ted were led by Ghengis Khan) or New Yorkers.  “Thank you” is also an essential part of your marriage vocabulary.  We’ll look at the importance of “thank you” in your daily life and in your quest to Keep a Happy Wife.

Please, Hammer, don't hurt 'em.

There are three categories of Thank You.  The lowest level of Thank You is the “Off Hand Thanks”.  It’s reserved for the clerk who hands you change or when your wife hands you a hammer while you repair a shelf.  In my case, it’s more when The Wife hands me a paper towel after I’ve spilled my Diet Mountain Dew.  I only use a hammer to open stubborn pistachio shells (that’s right, she’s a lucky Wife).  At any rate the “Off Hand Thanks” is an instinctive politeness.  Which is not a bad thing; it just doesn’t inspire much meaning or require much thought.

The mid-level of Thank You's is what I call the “Life Saver Thank You”.  That is the "Thank You" that, like the Life Saver is always appropriate, well…almost always.  There are very few times when a Life Saver (butter rum is my favorite) is inappropriate (unlike a Junior Mint).  You can have a Life Saver in church, at a funeral, during a business meeting…almost anytime.  You wouldn’t want one while you are in a dentist’s chair or singing an aria, but you get my point.  It is the kind of "Thank You" you give when someone gives you a wedding gift or cooks you dinner or congratulates you on successfully completing a complex high dive routine (never had that one).  When you give someone a Level Two “thank you”, they’ll know exactly why.  The key difference between the “Off Hand” and the “Life Saver” is the level of engagement between the “thanker” and “thankee”.  There is a higher degree of thought and purpose involved.

There is an old and hilarious Monty Python skit (aren’t they all “old” now and aren’t most of them hilarious still?) where one of the characters says in the dialogue “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition”.  Suddenly, three men in red robes (the Spanish Inquisitors) burst in the room and exclaim “Nooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” This brings us to the Third Level of Thankfulness: The “Left Field Thank You”.  It’s called that because, just as nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects this type of Thank You, either (because it came “out of left field”).  It is the “Thank You” you give or receive when there is no obvious reason at the moment as to why.  Nobody gave you change or handed you a hammer or gave you a roll of butter rum Life Savers, but you just told them “thank you”.  You’ve considered the character and the actions of someone important to you (friend, co-worker or spouse) and out of the blue (or out of left field) you thought to thank them.  At a moment when someone you care about wasn’t consciously thinking about anyone caring for them, you can touch their heart.

Do you see the power of those two little words?  Words that, oftentimes, are left behind like a coin at the “take a penny / leave a penny” tray.  However, when you apply pre-meditation and purpose to those words and add a bit of surprise (the chief weapon of the Spanish Inquisition) you can impact a relationship.  Try it today and see.  It can change perspectives.  It can create breakthroughs.  It can get you some sweet lovin’, too (Way to ruin the moment, huh?).

Keep A Happy Wife Guy…Out!

NFL predictions are here.
Preview of Fall TV Season is here.

The Fantasy Football Wife - Part Two

Fantasy Football is Like Marriage (or vice versa)

Nobody likes the guy that walks into a room in the middle of a TV show and starts asking questions: “Why don’t that Ross and Rachel get together?” or “Why are they running through the jungle from that cloud of smoke?” or “Are you gonna finish those fries?”  So, if you missed part one of this series, we will respect the rest of the class and let you catch up on your own time by clicking here.

For some guys, to keep a happy wife during fantasy football season they have to negotiate a peace (or as I call it “pulling a Menachem Begin”).  Fantasy football may be a source of strife for the wife, but there is a better way than just suffering through it.  I have for you, dear reader, three ways that fantasy football is like a good marriage (or vice versa).  Just as George turned his life around (albeit briefly) when he resolved to do the complete opposite of what he would normally do, putting these ideas into practice will bring you success at home and in your fantasy league.

Before I dive into that though, I wanted to share a suggestion on brokering a peace (aka pulling a Menachem  Begin) with your wife during fantasy football season.  It came from a fantasy football radio host, Peter Burns (twitter: @PeterBurnsRadio).  His idea is a revenue sharing agreement of your fantasy football winnings with your significant other.  This may be worth a try for you; however, there are two potential pitfalls.  First, if you don’t win then you have no pot to split.  So, you’ve lost credibility as a fantasy winner and you’ll never be able to use this approach again.  Second, most relationships operate under the reality of “what’s hers is hers and what’s his is hers”.  So, why would she want to split with you what she already believes is 100% hers anyway.

Without further ado…allow me to bring you three ways successful marriages and successful fantasy teams are alike.

Make Time for What’s Important

If you set priorities and schedule your time wisely, you can make both your fantasy team and your wife happy.  You know the days of the week that are critical for fantasy football success.  Obviously, Sunday.  You’ll need Monday night, too.  Tuesdays are for waiver wire work and trades.  So, you can establish a permanent date night with your wife on Wednesday, Friday or Saturday.  (Thursdays are a wildcard since NFL games are played on Thursdays later in the season.  Keep things flexible on Thursday.) What you’ll find is you will develop a discipline to managing your fantasy football team(s) which will help you find waiver wire gems early in the week and eliminate panicked free agent moves on Sunday mornings.  You’ll also find that you are spending more time with your wife, too.  Success…all because you made a commitment to set aside time for the important things in life.

The Little Things Make a Big Difference

As we discussed in Part One, being good at fantasy football requires at least a little fanaticism (if you can actually be a “little fanatical”).  You’ve got to know the details of wide receiver targets, defensive matchups, team depth charts, and identify what “homer” in your league will trade you LeSean McCoy for Tashard Choice just because they are a Cowboys fan.  If you don’t focus on the little things (like you have four running backs with byes in week 8) then you’ll be stuck dealing with big problems (you just picked up Bryan Westbrook for week 8 and you aren’t sure if he is even still in the league). 

The same is true in marriage.  You need to take care of the little things:  Notice when she has a different hair cut or a new dress.  Leave her little love notes (click here).  Say “thank you”….a lot.  Hug her occasionally without trying to grope her.  If you don’t focus on these little things then you’ll be stuck dealing with big problems (like she’s spending too much time with the pool boy, Sven, and you have to learn how to divide your stuff in half).

There is No Off-Season

To be successful in fantasy football, it requires a year round effort.  Any dope knows you follow games and players during the season, but you also need to focus on the NFL draft, free agent signings, training camp, injuries, hold outs and pre-season games.  You can’t show up to the most important day of the year (your league’s fantasy draft) and not be up-to-speed with complete information.  If you are trying to fake your way through it, you’ll eventually be found out…Hello Milli Vinilli!

Your marriage also has no off-season.  You can’t just show her attention on her birthday, your anniversary or five minutes before you want to have sex and think that will give you a successful marriage.  That might work if you are Danny Zuko, but you aren’t him and you don’t have a car with overhead lifters and some four barrel quads. 

Fantasy football is fun.  To be good at it, you’ve got to work at it.  Marriage can (and should) be fun, too.  A successful marriage is also a lot of work, however.  Neither fantasy football nor marriage has to be hard work, if you take care of business all along the way. 

Everybody needs help with both their fantasy football team and their marriage along the way.  The Keep A Happy Wife Guy is here to help you with both!  Enjoy the season.

The Fantasy Football Wife - Part One

Really, really ridiculously good looking

I’m not going to bother explaining fantasy football here. If you don’t have an idea of what fantasy football is about then you’ve probably never heard of a computer either, you flunked out of the  Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, and you aren’t reading this blog anyway. 

If you play fantasy football and are any good at it, then you are fanatical about it.  Being “good” at fantasy football doesn’t always equate to winning your league(s) – though in my case it does.  What I mean by being “good” is that you care about it.  You are prepared.  You set a proper line-up each week.  You offer and accept fair and reasonable trades.  You are “good” at it because you are fanatical. 

The unfortunate side effect of this fanaticism is that it sometimes leads to what NASA scientists refer to as “Fantasy Football Widow Syndrome”.  Men seem to put their relationships in peril each fall because of their obsession with their fantasy teams.  It does not have to be that way, guys.  You can have your obsession and eat it, too (though I’m not really sure what that means).

In some cases, your wife (or girlfriend…hopefully you don’t have both) may like pro football and even play fantasy football.  A recent study showed that 14% of the owners of fantasy teams are women.  I have played in a league that not only had three women in the league, but one was even the commissioner.  (And, yes, The Wife had a team in that league, too.)  These women didn’t just play as a novelty act and they didn’t have teams as the result of some obscure section of Title IX.  They knew their stuff.  They were fanatical about it.  They were good at it. 

Now, don’t go and sign up your wife in a league and tell her the Keep A Happy Wife Guy said you should do it (Hey, honey.  You’ve got a team in my fantasy football league now.  Your team name is The Raging Laundry Baskets).  If you do that…you’re a dead man.  If you’re a dead man, you won’t be able to adjust your roster for bye weeks and you’ll likely miss the play-offs.

If you do suggest to your wife she join you in fantasy football, you’ve got to make sure it is a fit first.  You can do more damage than good if you are not careful here. First, not to sound sexist but…she has to have enough knowledge and interest in pro football to own her team.  If she doesn’t, she’ll get frustrated and the other owners in your league could likely lose patience with her AND you. 

Second, the league itself has to be a fit.  If you play with a group of guys who are so intense that they make Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down look laid back, then you don’t want to subject your wife to that as her introduction into fantasy football.     

Finally, you need some ground rules.  If you are both in the same league then you can’t make trades with your wife.  Hopefully there is no one else in your league that could be accused of withholding sex from you if you didn’t trade her Drew Brees for Rex Grossman.  So, to keep the integrity of the league intact…no spouse-to-spouse trades.

A second rule would be that if she agrees to play, she has to put forth a full effort for the whole season.  If she wants to play so she can share an interest with you, then a 16 week commitment is required.  It can’t be like when I bought P90X, opened the box, counted the DVDs and put it back on my shelf.  If she is in…she’s in until the end of the year.

You would also want some rules about how much help you would give her, if any.  If she doesn’t want your help…don’t give it.   If you tell her to start Mike Sims-Walker and bench Braylon Edwards, you don’t want the wrath of the Raging Laundry Baskets on you when MSW takes a goose egg and Edwards decides this is the week he actually catches a pass in the end zone.  You may want to refer her to another friend to send her questions or show her websites that can help her with those kinds of questions.

I could go on about your wife taking the “if I can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach to fantasy football, but you should get the point by now. 

Know your wife.  Know your league.  Be careful to protect both (the wife more than the league…though your mileage may vary).

So what if your wife has no interest in fantasy football and maybe even hates it because it takes time away that you could be spending with her and the love fern.  Well, having separate interests is a healthy part of any marriage.  So you’ve got that going for you…which is nice.  In Part Two of this series, I’ll give you some ideas on how to Keep A Happy Wife and succeed at fantasy football at the same time.

For Part Two...click here.

Do You Know Where You're Blogging To?

The Keep A Happy Wife blog celebrates its 6-month anniversary this week.  (Who celebrates a 6-month anniversary, you may ask?  Well, you likely gave some acknowledgement to your sixth-month of marriage or you might not have been around for the seventh).  Since my first blog post, I’ve done what you could loosely call “research”.  (Research that I probably should have done before February).  What was this research? I googled “Keep a happy wife”.  Whew…Time for a nap.

In February, trying to find the Google search result for the KAHW blog was like trying to find a word in the dictionary that you didn’t know how to spell.  You keep flipping pages only to find that not only does the word have one of those roof-top looking symbols over a letter, you’ve also been pronouncing the word wrong all along.  The point is, I had to dig through about 27 pages of Google search results to find me.

When you google “Keep a Happy Wife” now, this blog usually shows up third or fourth.  As Ricky Bobby’s dad, Reese, said “If you ain’t first you’re last”.   So, I decided to scout out the competition and here is what I found.

The first search result is what appears to be a wedding planning website that is just using the “keep a happy wife” phrase to attract hits to the site.  The oddest thing about this site is the ads that appear on the blog.  One is for a service that helps women catch their husbands cheating.  Another is for men to find a Mexican wife.  Throw in an Ashley Madison ad and I think they’ve got it covered.

Sweet Fancy Moses!

Second is a blog post titled “14 Ways to Keep Your Wife Happy”.  This article focuses on etiquette (maybe that was the word I was trying to look up in the dictionary before).  Of the “14 Ways”, six of them are about fashion or personal grooming: don’t wear disco-era clothes, don’t dye your hair, wax your back.  Wax your back?  It also suggests men learn to dance.  Well, I’m an astonishing dancer (think Elaine from Seinfeld crossed with Urkel…sorry ladies, I’m taken.), but why bother dancing if you can’t wear your white leisure suit?  This site also had an ad from a company wanting to catch a cheating husband.  So, apparently either women don’t cheat or men just don’t want to know about it.

The next result is a blog post titled “101 Things to Keep the Wife Happy”.  One. Hundred. And one.  If the instructions to a new appliance calls for simply turning the sheet over, we men will lose interest.  One hundred and one is a little bold.  There are some good things on the list though, but some others I found funny.  The writer suggests painting your wife’s toe nails.  I tried this once. It was more like painting The Wife’s toes.  The Wife saying “Why do you need a second bottle of nail polish” and “No, you don’t use spackle” are sure signs I didn’t know what I was doing.

That blog writer, Bethany Hiitola, also suggests “shutting the door sometimes when you are in the restroom”.  Sometimes?  Look, nobody wants to see what’s under your band aid.  Nobody wants to see what’s in your Kleenex.  Nobody wants to know what what’s going on in the restroom. Shut the door…always.  Always.   Otherwise, the list was somewhat practical. The writer has lots of books and about 5 times as many pageviews as I did last month…so she must be doing something right. 

Since the first KAHW post (and this is the part where I thank you, the dear and loyal reader), page views have increased each month (July was more than double what February was.  Even though I lazily only had two posts in July). Many of you read each post.  Some of you put a link on Facebook to KAHW.  A bold 9 of you are actually subscribed followers (type in your e-mail where shown in the right margin and you can join us). 

I started this blog because I like to write, I enjoy helping people laugh (or at least smile), plus (and most importantly) I love The Wife.  Some of the 1,500-plus page views from last month were surely by accident through search engines (I’ll share the search keywords that bring people to KAHW some other time).  Hopefully a few were on purpose and a lot of those had to be because you’ve annoyed a friend until they broke down and pretended to read it.  I didn’t think I’d care about it, but watching the blogger stats is kind of fun. Thanks!

So this past six months has been a lot of fun for me and hopefully at least a little for you, too.  I’ve had a number of people tell me they’ve found post-it notes hidden for them.  I’ve been a guest blogger (thanks, Sandy).  Plus I managed to work “ho” into a blog post, which one friend didn’t think I could do.  A number of you have actually said you found the blog funny, too, which is very kind.  Nothing is quite as rewarding though as sitting across the room from The Wife and hearing her laugh out loud, then asking her what’s so funny and having her say she was reading the blog again.  Who knows maybe she read it 1,500 times last month?

Best.  Sequel.  Ever.

Diana Ross once sang "Do You Know Where You're Going To?".  While that is not proper grammar, it is a good question and one I've asked myself about KAHW.  I’ve got a few ideas stewing and gurgling about in my brain (nobody wants to see that either).  I will try to do more frequent and less word-intensive posts.  Sometimes you may even see multi-part posts (Not like sequels, though.  No Keep a Happy Wife 2 or Keep a Happier Wife or Keep a Happy Wife: Revenge of the Wife).  I’m also planning on a series of posts based on the Gary Chapman book “The Five Love Languages”.  That should be a lot of fun for us, assuming I don’t get a cease and desist letter from Mr. Chapman’s attorneys.

Thanks, again.  Tell all your friends.

My Triple Take On Sports includes a review of Golf Channels new programming and an actual personal sports accomplishment.

You can also see my review of Cowboys & Aliens here.