Guest Author - Pam Garlick

Several weeks before our wedding Ken and I were discussing music preferences for our ceremony, when out of the blue he says something about a song that would be appropriate for us. He suggested, “Make an Ugly Woman Your Wife”.

Well, as you can imagine, I was crushed by what he said. I was speechless for a moment, which anyone knows me will tell you, doesn’t happen often. So, a moment was just a moment, indeed, while I collected my stunned wits and asked him how he could say such a hurtful thing. What man in his right mind would actually tell a woman he wanted to marry that he thought she was ugly?

Not my husband. He stammered over a few vowels before he finally found the words to explain he was actually talking about the part of the song where the singer says, “Man can she cook”. He quickly tried to clarify he had been trying to compliment me on my culinary skills, not degrade my appearance.

That explanation passed, of course. I mean, we are married. Happily I might add. In large part because I have learned to overlook such verbal faux pas. That is a must since they do happen quite frequently.

Like a statement he made one morning when I got up to see him off to work, as I so often did, thinking myself to be the most gracious of wives, considering it was somewhere between two and three in the morning. Ken’s words this time were meant to explain just how much he loved me.

“I must really love you,” he started. “To be sitting here looking at you right now.” He was speaking about my unruly, bed-head and pillow-creased face. Proof of his love was that he was actually looking at me. Gee, and all the time I thought I was the one proving my love by being up with him at that hour of the morning. – Needless to say, I no longer get up to see Ken off in the morning. Suffice to say I am sparing his eyes the strain of looking at me, and giving myself some more, obviously much-needed beauty sleep.

Okay, one might say Ken is clueless and he would take no offense at that. In fact, after both these experiences he failed to understand what it was he had said wrong.

Even he admits he’s clueless. -- There was a particular Arlo and Janis cartoon that I liked, where Janis asks Arlo how he could love her when she’s so fat, and he replies that men aren’t nearly as particular as women seem to think. It’s obvious to me in the final frame why Janis storms off in a huff. -- Ken, however, hasn’t a clue.

Yes, he’s clueless.

Oh there have been other examples through our twelve years together. I have grown to look upon his verbal faux pas with less and less heartache, and more and more humor.
We recently took a course for couples to strengthen our marriage. In the course I realized I tend to bring up Ken’s verbal faux pas to others quite frequently. Sure they bring on a few laughs, but doing that falls under a category of women having long memories and never letting our men forget the stupid things they have done.

As part of the class, I made a promise I would not speak about his wedding music suggestion, nor his early morning words of love. So, I’m not speaking about them. I’m writing about them.

Plus, in the course of writing about them I located the artist/creator of Arlo and Janis, Jimmy Johnson and awaiting his permission to make myself a tee shirt with that cartoon Ken didn’t get. I’m planning to wear it until he does get it, or until it wears out from washing; whichever comes first.

Which do you think it will be?