To Engineer is Human

I have often joked that I should write a book called When Smart Men Say Stupid Things. Being the daughter, sister, wife, and best friend of various engineers, I have nearly an honorary doctorate in the field. The book could be my dissertation.

My husband has contributed more than he knows to its formation, with questions like:

"Do I have time to change clothes?" (This is an example of something rendered stupid by context, which in this case was me, panting in labor with our first born, greeting him at the door after I had just ordered him home from work.)

Or analyses such as:

“I really hadn't noticed you were gaining weight until I saw your double chin.”

He often preceeds these statements with things like, "I know I'm not supposed to say this...”

And I always interject: "Comma, but."

I suspect the unspoken clause following the comma, but is "I can't help myself!!!"

My husband is too, too honest, too earnest, too straight-up to pansy around with dissembling and pleasantry.

Yes, you look tubby in that dress.
Is it supposed to taste like this?
Wow! You really have a lot of grey hair.

It's hard to hold this against him, because for so long I had dated men who were charismatic, smooth-talking liars. Or sometimes dummies. Or both. From whom I nevertheless heard the most beautiful things. The sorts of things you cart around with you in the back of your psyche and take out once in awhile to admire, to remind yourself of what it was like to be charmed, to be smooth-talked.

Like the gorgeous California boy who said, “Call me when you have those nightmares. I’ll come over and hold you and remind you that everything will be fine.” But forgot to add, “As long as that’s OK with my live-in girlfriend.”

Or the other gorgeous California boy who said, “When I look into your beautiful blue eyes I just lose myself,” but stopped short of the full truth: “which really isn’t hard to do because I’m completely shiftless and irresponsible.”

Or the long tall Texas cowboy (who I met in California) with this husky whisper: “I’ll think of nothing but the curve of your hip until I see you again.” Which means, apparently, that my body’s morphology is still plaguing him to this very day.

Eventually I came to realize that if a man said all the right things, it was a red flag, a detour sign, flashing lights and ambulance sirens on the highway of life.

When I met my husband, this is what struck me about him first: Here is the most honest man I have ever met. It’s still true, even today when – ensconced in marriage – love has less to do with beautiful blue eyes (although he does have those) or curvaceous hips and more to do with being straight up and not dissembling.

So in the end, I’ll always take my straight-talking man. Besides, my sister-in-law pointed out the problem with my book's premise: no one reads anything that long anymore.