Like Fine Wine, I’m Vintage
Somehow, my manicure miraculously survived housecleaning and cooking two separate Thanksgiving dinners. Frankly, I was rather surprised since I’m notorious for chipping a nail at inopportune moments… like 15 minutes after the salon’s closed for the weekend, or three minutes before I’m due at an event where I’d hoped to look pulled together.
My husband — for whom nail maintenance consists of a monthly chewing — just couldn’t understand my smug gloating. In his mind, the time and money I spend getting my nails done is just a waste. “Why do women bother?” he asked.
So I explained to him that at some point in ancient history — shortly before my mother-in-law was born, I believe — lacquered nails on a woman were a sign of her husband’s financial prowess. If a man was wealthy, his wife could afford to keep her nails painted and hire servants to do all of the menial labor. Then, at some point, men decided they looked hot so women of all income levels began painting their nails.
Ditto with suntans. Pale skin was, for centuries, what distinguished well-heeled women from their menial laboring counterparts whose daily drudgery exposed them to harmful rays and, thus, turned their skins tan. A woman so wan she practically glowed? Why, that was a sign that her husband was wealthy enough to keep his woman pampered. Then, as with the lacquered nails, men decided that tans were hot so women of all income levels began tanning.
Heck, I told him, a woman carrying excess weight was historically considered attractive and proof of her husband’s affluence, too. Consider the ample endowments of Ruben’s plus-sized painting subjects. Extra amplitude on a woman signified that her husband could food — lots of food — to keep her fed, and also servants to perform work so she could keep that extra padding packed on.
“So,” my husband said, “what your saying is that between your nail appointments, your fear of direct sunlight and your never-ending efforts to lose weight you’re actually retro?”
“Exactly, though I prefer to think of it as vintage,” I told him. “But, you know, I’m only doing this to make you look good.”
13 Responses to “Like Fine Wine, I’m Vintage”
It was the same with shoes wasn’t it? Platforms so high that women could not walk by themselves, they had to have servants to keep them balanced… I can’t remember what they were called.
Anyway, they eventually morphed into high heels. So getting some more shoes will make him look better too.
I do love the way you think.
Manipulating men by making them happy is an art form, and I’m an artist
i’ve always known that my short, white, fat body is not vertically-challenged, melanin-challenged or exercise-challenged.
rather, i am century-challenged.
Manipulating men by making them happy is an art form, and I’m an artist.
Truth be told, most of us are absurdly easy to please.
Easy, perhaps, but also far more time-consuming than you give yourselves credit for being.
That’s because we know you are going to put effort into it, so we try to keep it interesting.
wg, women are quite easy to please too
My dear husband wants to buy me a watch for Christmas. I’d like a decent watch, but he keeps looking at those encrusted with diamonds and too small for my aging eyes to see what time it is.
I’m much more impressed by reliability and accuracy than I am by diamonds and I can’t seem to get this across to him. If he thinks I married him for his ability to buy diamonds, I have failed in some fundamental way.
I’m even easier to please: I don’t need a watch… I just ask VH what the time is.
Donna, I suspect that the goal there is to appeal to your practical side as well as to give you something pretty. Functional things can be beautiful, and I would guess he’s keeping that in mind – the ability to buy diamonds is at best a distant third, other than in a can-I-afford-this sense.
You are probably right, wg, and that makes me feel better.
Kate, you’re so practical
Of course I’m right. Like most men, I’m always right – just ask me. Go ahead, I have Red’s permission to say I am.
LOL!! I really wanna meet Red someday. I think I could learn a thing or two.