So I was brainstorming this post in the shower.  This is largely because it’s Saturday morning, and I had just had my coffee.  This is significant because coffee really gets the creative side of my mind churning, but normally this amounts to nothing because I’m typically at work.  I think to myself: “That’s a great idea for a blog post/poem!  I will write that this evening”. Then “this evening” finally roles around and I find the inspiration completely gone and opt for vegging on facebook looking to see what everyone’s up to back in the midwest.  Not today!  I’m putting off doing the dishes so I can jot this down before the muse is gone.

Anyway, as I said, I was brainstorming this in the shower.  Have you ever done this where you zone out so much in the shower that you can’t remember if you have washed a certain part of your body?  For instance, today I was halfway through the shampoo cycle when I suddenly awoke from my dreaming and thought: “Did I use bodywash yet?”  Anyway, just an aside…

So I read Gavin’s post the other day about his dating advice for men, which is outstanding by the way, and found myself inspired to write a “married man” analog to his post.  So here it is:

1.  The Victoria’s Secret Christmas catalog is a gift to married couples everywhere.  I know it’s been said before that the Victoria’s Secret catalogs are a gift to men, but being a married man who’s days of posing as a woman on victoriasecret.com so that he can get the catalogs in the mail for potty time viewing are long past, I’m here to tell you that they are even more of a blessing amidst marriage.  In most marriages, there are very few times where the viewing of soft porn is either sanctioned, or much less, a together activity.  Enter the Victoria’s Secret catalogs.  Look at them together.  Help pick out Christmas gifts for her (and you).  It is outstanding.  And if she gets sketical of the idea, simply diffuse the situation by popping in the movie 300–another piece of pop culture surely sent to married couples by God himself.

2.  If, in the more rare cases, your wife likes football more than you, don’t make jokes about sensitive games, such as Nebraska vs. Iowa State for at least 48 hours after the let down, and even then, do so cautiously.

3.  During courtship, women have incredible abilities of hiding various activities or evidence of such from men.  Once the rings are on and the vows made, these abilities disappear with the virginity.  You may begin to notice these things and will probably find their sudden appearence humorous.  REFRAIN, however, from joking about them to your wife.

4.  Conversly to the previous tidbit, there are numerous activities habitually exhibited by single men which MUST disappear post becoming one flesh.  For many years of bachelor life, any man takes enjoyment from time to time sitting alone at the dinner table, watching The Office, biting into a big juicy burger that he just grilled for himself, and farting unashamed while relishing the way it reverberates on the cheap metal folding chair he is sitting on, furthermore, on the more rare occasions, impressing himself with the potence of his creation while continuing to tear into that delicious burger.  Thus there may be a few dinners early in marriage, where the man may forget where he is, and fall back into old habits.  DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO DROP THIS HABIT.  Men that happen to have more difficulty dropping old habits, or are particularly absent-minded, need not worry, however, because the aleviation of such activitiy will be positively reinforced by the lack of sex that hangs around much longer than the odor.