Who Loves Ya Baby?

What loves ya baby?
From what I am hearing, that’s a good question.
You can’t go anywhere these days without some expert telling you that your friends and family are up to no good.
If anyone should know these people, it’s you: they’re your family.
Not so fast, the experts say: statistics don’t lie. Three out of every two wives, one third of all pets, and 200% of all characters in the ‘soaps’ will break your freakin heart if you give them half the chance.
Wise up, the wise guys say, or you’re going to wake up in the poor house, wearing nothing but tire tracks.
Look at poor Sir Paul McCartney: he married a one-legged girl and – after a polite pause, even she ran off.
Relationships, it seems, are just another form of communicable disease.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
And to be forewarned is to know the signs.

According to the folks at Hanky Panky Services, Inc., Sign #1 is a clean shirt
If your significant other suddenly changes their shirt, or their shoes, or the pants that they told you just the other day were a bit too tight, look in the phone book under liar, liar, pants on fire.
Sign #2: Sudden Weight Loss
If your close companion uncharacteristically passes up a third helping of Hamburger Helper, then winks at you, and pats their stomach to acknowledge that they are, in fact, a bit overweight – check EBAY for a deal on miniature cameras.
Sign #3: Secret Vacation Spot
If you come across paperwork indicating that your better half has bought a vacation home with a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and a master bedroom overlooking the Danube, oil up your collection of authentic Incan machetes.
Sign #4: Overtime
If your confidante suddenly starts to put in extra hours at work, extra time at the gym, runs for office, takes up fishing, or goes out to mow the lawn before you even ask, who’s fooling whom?
Sign #5: Advice
If your ‘best bud’ surprises you by seriously contemplating all the free advice being dispensed on the television, something’s rotten on Denmark Drive.

That last one’s the key.
It all starts, I would argue, with listening to all this unsolicited advice.
When did you ever get any unsolicited advice, that wasn’t asking you to be afraid?
Unsolicited advice comes generally originates with individuals who have personal experience taking the wrong advice.
The best psychiatrists are psychotic.
Or to put it more plainly, its human nature: once you get screwed, you want everyone else to feel as bad.
Misery loves company – especially if the company is willing to pay cash for that advice.
And that’s where I really draw the line. Or perhaps I should admit that’s where the line has been drawn for me: because sooner or later, the people giving out all that free advice will want to be paid.
And I just can’t afford it.
Maybe that’s what gives me not only the right, but the ability to ignore all that good advice: because I’m too poor.
Without the cash, I can’t afford to buy the new shirt that might make my wife suspicious, or the new pants that might make me just that much more appealing to the hovering home wreckers out there.
Without a big bankroll I can’t afford the Lean Cuisines and Fat Free Salad Dressing, or the Laughing Cow cheese, or the Steak and Grapefruit Diet, all of which might make me a far more appealing specimen to begin with.
I certainly can’t afford a secret hideaway, or even a weekend at the Cuddles and Bubbles Suite at the Codpiece Motel in Hanson. And there are not many women out there willing to drive to the mountains and put up a pup tent for love. Hell, there aren’t too many married women who are willing to sleep in a tent for a night, whatever the excuse...
As far as free advice goes, well you know me: I’d much rather give it out than take it in. And after a long day of playing the know-it-all, I have absolute no patience for Oprah or any of her friends.
Coincidentally, the wife just loves the Oprah.
She doesn’t get to see her show though: she usually doesn’t make it home until 5:30 or so. Some nights she’s much later than that because, to be honest about it, she’s the banker in this family.
Last week she went on this special ‘Financial Planning Weekend’, at some Inn up in New Hampshire, with some of her friends from her work.
We laughed about how we were really taking those financial advisers for a ride, considering we had no money to invest. But I was still glad to see her get a little time away from work and the kids.
I tell you, for all the stress she’s under, at work and at home, I am amazed how relaxed she seems.
When I ask her how she does it, she just winks and say, ‘that’s my little secret’.
If I didn’t know better…
You want some free advice?
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself: that and the bill from the lawyers.