A couple of nights ago the wife was in one of those moods.
She just wanted to chat away.

I was in one of those moods.
What was on TV was interesting.

You can see what’s coming.
Have the medics stand by.

With all the languages in the world and all the words available, there is no way to say, “Stifle yourself, please.”

…and survive.

Husbands are expected to listen, look interested and nod at the appropriate time.

A skill many of us learn quickly if we want wedded bliss to continue for more than the first week.

Here’s the way of the world – women by nature like to share things.

They can talk with their girlfriends for hours picking over their day and dissecting the smallest details of stuff men will never understand.

Then they try to do the same thing with their husbands.

Usually in the middle of a football game or a show about taking apart a car engine.

Sometimes if we’re really lucky the subject is some juicy gossip we really want to hear.

But almost always it’s something we could care less about and is in another universe.

Saying, “That’s way too much information” doesn’t work and just gets her grumpy.

I’d gladly listen to the wife if she could boil down a 30 minute conversation to three sentences.

Never happen.
Women aren’t made that way.

I’ve seen this urge to chat happen in the middle of my trying to get out the door in the morning, headed for the bathroom on an important mission or while struggling to carry something heavy to the garage.

Timing is everything – something women do not understand.

Obviously, since I’ve made it to my advanced age, I must have learned how to survive this.

Here’s three secrets:

One, pretend you’re dead.
Unfortunately that leads to other craziness, so it’s not recommended except under the most dire circumstances.

Two: you’re old and old people are hard of hearing from too much rock-and-roll.
Pretend you don’t hear.

Of course that opens up a whole avenue of her bugging you to get a hearing aid.

We don’t really want to go there because old guys don’t want to look old and a hearing aid does that.

If that doesn’t work – there’s number three – tell her she told you that yesterday, with a smile.

The smile is important.
Forget the smile and you’re dead.

At her age she won’t remember if she really did and move on.

If you’re lucky you ducked another bullet.

If not, you’re now grumpy.

I’ll be damned if this isn’t the weirdest thing.

Science has finally explained why we forget things.

It’s the doors.

Just like walking under a ladder causes bad luck, going through a door makes you forget things.

It’s amazing how it always turns out to be something simple.

I suppose this requires some explanation before you start throwing stones.

Let’s start with an example: You’re sitting in your comfy chair in the living room and notice a dirty coffee cup on the table next to you.

I don’t notice those things, but you might.

It bothers you because you’re a neat freak or the wife will scold you.

How it got there is not important.

You pick it up and head for the kitchen.

By the time you get there, you’ve forgotten why you went in there in the first place, and you wander back to your chair all confused — until you look down and see…the cup.

Okay, fess up.
We all have arrived somewhere only to say, “Now what the hell was I coming here for?”

Scientists at Notre Dame say they have the answer…and it’s not a senior moment.
This is surprising because I didn’t think they did much besides play football.

Their scientific paper’s title says it all: “Walking through doorways causes forgetting.”

How they arrived at this is way too long and convoluted to go into here.

Let’s leave it at this: a lot of students were used to pick up a lot of things and walk through a lot of doors.

Science can be messy.

Here’s their conclusion…memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance without going through a door.

The whole thing is confusing to read about, much less do.

They had the students sometimes pick up something, walk through a door, and then walk through a second door that brought them either to a new room or back to the first room.

Are you still with me?
Anyway, by the time they hit the second door they apparently were all loopy.

Something I get just walking to the bathroom.

Here’s my simple explanation: The doorway effect seems to show there’s more to remembering than just what you paid attention to, when it happened, and how hard you tried.

Parts of your memory appears to be designed to keep information handy until its shelf life expires, and then dumps it in favor of new stuff.

In other words, there’s only so much room and new stuff pushes out old stuff.

So, all you old folks out there – things are looking up.

Science has shown you’re not going brain-dead.

It’s that you have so much stuff in your head from all your years it just takes longer to zero in on what you want.

Now science is saying everyone has senior moments, even the kids.

Life is looking up.

Stop being grumpy.

Run into me on a Monday and I’m a sweetheart.
If it’s Friday you might want to pass me by.

I blame the boss for not letting me take a nap.

There are two times in your life when the truth is evident.

Once when you’re two years old and once when you’re a billion years old – like me.

Naps are where it’s at.

Everybody loves naps except the people you work for.

We’ve all worked out elaborate ways of sitting in our office looking busy while we’re napping.

I like faking the study of some report.

Waste of good innovation.

Some of the greatest thinkers took lots of naps.

Winston Churchill fought World War Two while napping each day.

It was a bunch of years ago when some guy on the City Council tried to pass a bill giving city workers the right to take a 30 minute nap after lunch.

Everybody laughed at him, including me.

Then I saw the light, so to speak.
He was ahead of the time.

The workers thought it was a great idea.

The scientific research about naps has arrived.

I keep an eye on this stuff so you’ll always know what’s going on with test tubes and rat’s mazes.

Scientists are saying the evidence proves there are real benefits to a nap.

People who nap will tell you they knew it all along.

A short snooze of 10-20 minutes will fix you right up.

Got more time?
Then pack it in for at least 90 minutes.

Anything in between doesn’t work well.

It all has to do with non-REM and REM sleep.
Too complicated for here but I bet you don’t want to know why anyway.

I was in a meeting recently at 10 o’clock where I was dying to close my eyes.

Maybe I did because everyone suddenly started looking at me in a strange (or envious) way.

Maybe they thought I died.
Fooled them.

The Spanish have been doing napping for years.
They even close businesses for about two hours after lunch while everyone hits the rack.

Of course their economy is in the dumpster but it’s a small price for feeling good.

Some people say our economy isn’t much better.
They should take a nap and see if that brightens their day.

The further I get from Monday the grumpier I get.
That’s proof enough for me.