Forty– something

A woman in my office once said the perfect man is a gingerbread man, because you can bite his head off easily if you need to. I can understand this. It makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense to me is that the gingerbread man should also come with a green thumb and a box of detergent. He doesn’t need to look like a Hollywood movie star, but he does need to know how to handle a shovel and that colors are washed with cold water.

At least that’s how things work at my house. I guess I should be thankful.

If I spend the day spreading monkey grass around the mulch beds or planting azaleas or digging up dead bushes or pulling weeds, my wife looks at me the way most women look at Brad Pitt. Someone please explain this to me.

I could buy her flowers or jewelry, but I get a better response giving up a Saturday to do laundry and folding.

Ironically, performing these tasks is exhausting and by the end of a busy day of landscaping, or folding laundry I’m too tired to enjoy the benefits of my hard labor. It would be easier to open a bottle of wine and crack open some oysters, but my wife’s allergic to shellfish and likes it better when I open a bag of Miracle–Gro. Forget candles and cologne, because she prefers potting soil and a good layer of sweat.

I spent all these years torturing myself with sit–ups and barbells trying to build my body into something that would weaken my wife’s knees. I risked my life on sports fields, ski slopes, and mountain trails trying to impress her with my athletic prowess and adventurous spirit.

I constantly tried to show off my knowledge of politics, and for what? Even if all the exercise had overcome my love for pizza and moose tracks ice cream, and even if I had managed to catch a ground ball once in a while or gotten to the bottom of a mogul field in one piece, and even if Bill O’Reilly had invited me on to be a political pundit, it would not have mattered a bit. All I ever have to do is aerate the front yard, and I’m golden. I’m just mad it took me this long to figure it out.

So, I can lie around eating Cheetos all day, and as long as I keep the lawn in perfect condition, I’m as pretty as George Clooney in a pair of scrubs. I used to wonder how grown men could become so obsessed with things like fescue and fertilizer, but now I know. It ain’t about the landscaping.

It doesn’t seem fair that I have to perform eight to ten hours of hard labor and all she has to do is walk in the room, but it sure beats sit ups. Besides, my yard is looking better than my stomach ever did or will.