If you’re thinking of divorcing your wife due to irretrievable breakdown, but concerned about the high cost of legal fees and who would get the Seinfeld DVDs, I have good news for you. MSN Lifestyle has published The Female Brain, a five-point guide by Laura Schaefer that will allow you “to finally understand what is happening behind her pretty eyes.”
What a godsend! Remember when the Justice Department wanted to take away Microsoft’s internet browser? And they wonder why people mistrust government!
To save you the trouble of searching for the now-archived article, what follows is a Reader’s Digest version, with highlights that could save your marriage.
Pay attention to the little things. La Schaefer says to “see shades of meaning in small gestures . . . because the outer layer of a brain that conducts . . . high level computing — -are thicker in the ladies.” (sic) She says a small act of kindness like a kiss on the cheek accordingly means more to a woman than a man.
Remember, you’re not paying for this advice, and it’s a good thing. I can just see myself using this strategem some Saturday night.
WIFE: Why’d you kiss me?
ME: I read on MSN Lifestyle that your brain has a thick outer layer and that you’re a sucker for insignificant gestures.
WIFE: Why are you so mean to me?
To keep up with her memory, take notes. Schaefer says women remember everythingbecause the hippocampus — where memories are formed — makes up a larger percentage of women’s brains than men’s. So while she remembers the day you met and the first time you called her at work, you remember the first time you — sorry, I see that some of you allow your children access to social networking sites.
Still, you need to be careful how you implement this suggestion of Ms. Schaefer’s. Here is verbatim dialogue from a table for two next to me at L’Endive, a snooty French restaurant:
WOMAN: So I hadn’t heard from Janice for like at least a year when she . . . what are you doing?
MAN: I’m writing down what you’re saying.
WOMAN: (Beat) Why?
MAN: Because you have a gigantic hippocampus.
WOMAN: Why you fucking . . .
Schaefer, by the way, appears to have no medical, scientific or counseling credentials, unless you count writing “Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor: The Best and Worst Personal Ads of All Time” as academic training.
Follow her calm lead versus instigating bar fights: There may be some truth to this one. I get annoyed when I order iced coffee in some out-of-the-way restaurant and a waitress says “I can pour some coffee over ice for you.” “Forget it,” I say, apparently a little too dismissively for my spouse’s taste.
She, on the other hand, nearly sent a guy to the emergency room for complaining that the actual Whopper with Cheese that was stuffed into his Burger King bag wasn’t quite as attractive as the photograph of this delectable menu item that appeared above his head. “You can’t eat the freaking picture and there are other people waiting,” she helpfully informed him before I’d had a chance to check my Handy Pocket Guide to Concealed Weapon States.
Write her a poem or at least a cute email. “Women excel in . . . verbal fluency, or being able to come up with appropriate words, given cues.” All I can say is, Laura Schaefer never heard my wife during an argument. Would the stenographer please read back from the transcript:
ME: The reason we owe taxes every April is because I use IRS Form 1040-ES to estimatewhat we’ll have to pay, but I’m not always right.
HER: You are such a stupid stunod!
Be her serotonin: Female brains produce less serontonin, the brain chemical that makes people happy, than men’s. So, says Schaefer, “if she has a tough day at work, treat her to a tranfusion: Try a pep talk, soothing back rub or long hug.”
I’ve tried the hugging and back-rubbing things. It’s uncanny how I get the same reaction every time I suggest them.
“If you’re thinking of sex,” she says, “forget it.”