All the Cards on the Table.

I know that I shouldn't be writing this. I know that I should put down the laptop, go get the crayolas and stick to the simple life of sunsets and clouds. Enough with the words because sometimes they get you into trouble. Like this particular blog.

I told a friend what I was going to write about and he said "Dude, keep my name out of it." I didn't expect any support on this one. A man walks a lonely road when he goes up against the powers that be. That limb that you climb out on gets thinner and thinner until pretty soon you are the only fat ass out there when it snaps. Well, so be it. I'll leave other members unnamed at this point in time but I expect you to sing my praises in the future.

A couple of days ago a couple of the guys got together to go see a movie. We asked our wives. Some made deals and some made promises. Some groveled and some underwent the "look of death" before getting permission to go out. So we saw the movie. After the movie, we decided a beer would go really well with the popcorn that we consumed. So like good husbands we all called our wives and again cleared it with upper management. We were a go for a beer, just one. 30 minutes only, we all swore.

As expected, I arrived home later than what I told my wife. Small argument ensued where I tried to state my case, bringing up cell phone records to prove my points and showing that indeed I did call often. The word "worried" was thrown out which is hard to argue with. Such as you mean so much to me I was worried that something bad happened to you. How do you argue with that? Yes, you are so noble and I am a shitheal.

It then hit me. Yes, women are crazy. That most of us mean already knew. But they are also subtle. They read between the lines, even when there is nothing but blank white space between those lines. However, and remember I'm not trying to speak for any buddies here (they got busted to), they seem never to read between the lines when it comes to guys going out and what we tell them.

So to clear the air, let's make this all perfectly clear. No more surprises, no more guessing games, no more worry for the wife because I can't argue with the worry and it frankly just sucks giving in so early.

First off, and this is for all wives: I don't like asking for permission. I'm not 5 years old asking to go for a sleepover, I just want to go have a beer. This is true for most guys. Now, I know that there will be women reading this that say "I'm not that bad, he never has to ask for permission!"

I call bullshit. I call complete and total bullshit. I call so much bullshit that there are not enough shovels in the world to properly dispose of the bullshit.

Every guy asks for permission, you just may not realize it. When he first tells you about what he is planning to do, he is asking for permission without ever using those words because it makes us feel like we are back to 10 years old asking if we can please oh please have 10 bucks to play laser tag. He is reading your body language. If you give off bad vibes, he immediately takes is all back and tells you that HE DOESN'T really want to go, no big deal. Of course it's total and utter crap. Hell yes he wants to go but he doesn't want to deal with the massive amount of guilt that you are about to lay on his doorstep.

Now there are some women reading this that again will say they are not like that. Maybe so, but your husband also knows that you are filing this away to be used in a future argument. Oh yes, we can smell your smugness from here. It will come up sometime, somewhere, where you will bring up how cool a wife you are, unlike those other wives, so you should appreciate her more and not be too judgmental about that brief thing she had with the pool boy. After all, she let you go out with your buddies.

Next, whatever time he tells you he is going to be home, add at least 2 hours to that before you start to worry. You see, guys are not real good planners. When you ask us what time we are going to be home, we honestly have no idea. So we just throw out any random number that we don't think you'll get mad at. We can't say "I don't know" because you'll get pissed. Honestly, it could be in an hour or it could be the next morning. I swear to god, we just don't know. Sure, they were just planning on seeing a movie. 2 hours, max. But then, a possible beer gets thrown in. And hell yes we would like a beer rather than sitting at home watching the latest installment of Tru Beauty.

Now when he calls you to tell you about said beer, take the 2 hours later and add at least another hour but more realistically probably about 3. We never mean for this to happen but one beer turns into another and sure as shit you cannot walk away from a debate about the greatest athlete of all time (Micheal Jordan my ass.) But keep in mind, when this all started out we didn't plan on getting shitfaced.

And don't remind him "not to drink to much." We know this and we never plan on this. However, if the truth be told, we are always planning on this. What we are looking for in those 2 hours in the bar is a designated driver to get us safely home to your wrath. No reason taking out somebody else rather than just myself. If we can't find one, we'll knock it off at 2 beers. However, if someone volunteers, it could be around 10. Like I said, we don't plan very well. If you want to know if your man is planning on getting tanked before he goes out, just look at his behavior. If he is all giddy like it's Christmas eve, yup, he's going to get so drunk that it will make his college binges seem like practice.

Now when he does come home, let's hope he had some good friends. Good friends are the ones that will walk him to the door and make sure he gets inside ok. Bad friends are the ones that will just throw him in the front yard and ring the doorbell and run like hell. Because let's be honest, that's just funny and every bad friend knows it. No worries though, because like most wives you hate his bad friends anyway and have been trying for years to get him not to associate with those people. Every husband has a friend that the wife just hates, for one reason or another.

For me, my wife says I get to cussy around that guy and has no idea why I hang around with him. The arguement of lifelong bond, childhood compadrae, and he gave me a kidney makes no difference.

But lets say that he makes it home and tries ever so lightly to crawl into bed. If you are awake, we ask that you pretend to be asleep because nothing is as horrible to find a wife laying awake in the darkness brewing about how much she is going to kick our ass. Just fake it, like some other things you fake, and we can deal with it in the morning.

Now if you do wake up, you should never ask him the time. Because he will lie his little monkey balls off to you. He will assume that you went to bed an hour after your normal bed time, say 11:00pm. He will figure it took you 30 minutes to fall asleep. So he will tell you it's only 11:45 honey, no big deal, sorry I'm late, you just went to bed. It's really closer to 3:45 and late cannot even begin to describe the time that he is coming home. The best ones will actually go jack with your clock just in case you want to check it. I'm not a proud man, but yes, I've done that. Look, only 11:45. Yup, now I have to go shower so I can leave for work in 30 minutes.

Be prepared for your man to stink. If it's not the smoke and the beer then it's the stink of lies and it cannot be washed off with your child's wetwipe in the time it takes to get from the bottom of the stairs to the top of the stairs. It cannot be covered up with cheap restroom cologne. A shower will only serve to wash it deeper into the skin and our lying stinking souls.

And let's be clear about one other thing. We have no delisions that you are buying any of the shit that we are feeding you. From start to finish, we know that we are busted. We know that you know and we are only trying to deflect any shitstorm that is coming our way. We both know it so let's just all argee on it. I will not tell you that no one, in the entire group of 4 guys that I went out with, didn't have a cell phone if you promise to keep my reaming short and sweet. I will not bring up things that other guys did so that I look better by comparison.

"Hey, I'm not such a bad guy, the other dude drove home drunk and crashed into a bus of old people. Is that what you want, for me to kill old people? Ya know, that's just really cruel, I don't really understand how you can be so cruel. How do you live with yourself?"

But don't try to reverse the situation. Don't say something like "what would you do if I went out and had drinks with the girls and came home drunk? Huh, how would you feel if I came home 3 hours late?"

Well, I would feel fantastic and hope that some late night drunk loving would be coming my way. That arguement won't work on us. Oh, we'll say something like "Well yes honey, I would be worried." But that's not what we are thinking. We are thinking shit, go have a blast. It was fun as hell for me. And while you were gone I was playing 5 hours of nonstop video games without getting any shit at all. In fact, I demand you go out with your girlfriends and get toasted."

We won't say that because we know that it would just piss you off even more to know that we don't worry as much as you do. But don't fret, it will all work out in the end because alot of us have daughters and one day they will go on a date with Chester the douchebag and miss curfew at which point we will be in a living hell. Karma, we are aware that it exists.

Finally, if you can find it in your heart of hearts, just give us a pass. If you want to show us how cool you are, just let it go. Be that cool chick that you claim to be and just let me go to ever loving sleep so I can wake up to worshiping you once again.

Now if everyone will excuse me, I have to make the couch.