Here it comes, the one weekend I looked forward to every year I was married. Stupor Bowl weekend, especially Stupor Bowl Sunday. Here is it, the one chance a woman truly has to eliminate undesirables in her environment. While your man is totally engrossed in a mindless ballgame featuring millionaires in spandex, here’s what you can accomplish...
First, make sure you pre-shop ahead of Super Bowl Sunday so you can quickly replace whatever you subtract. He won’t notice anything that is missing from the closet, but he will notice empty spaces where his ratty stuff used to be, so fill those holes as you go.
Dig out every ragged “but I still like it” shirt and jeans, bag ‘em, drag ‘em to the burn barrel or get them tucked in a yellow town bag. Rout out the sneakers, whose only remaining resemblance to sneakers is knotted laces and slim pieces of fabric that connect all the holes. Keep the beer flowing and while he’s yelling in the living room, get rid of everything he thinks he can still wear from high school.
Underwear. Why do men think that underwear can be worn from date of purchase till the wearer’s natural death? Men have underwear that is ten years old and more. Waistband’s all stretched out, tiny tips of elastic gasping for air popping out all over. No fruit left in the loom at all except for the nuts that occasionally visit. It doesn’t matter how big a man gets, if he can still squeeze into one of the old size 34 briefs he wore during his wrestling years in high school, that is his size forever. If he buys new underwear, it will be size 34, and you will see him use WD-40 on his rump and a shoehorn for the rest, to prove to you that his size 42 self can still fit in a 34. He will stretch and wring out the fruit of the loom so completely, he will smell like Sangria. It’s up to the gals, or guys, in his life, to sneak new underwear into his life. Sometimes you just have to save people from themselves.
Papers. Find all the paper; bank statements from before 2000, credit card offers from previous years that he insists on keeping, “Don’t throw anything out until I have time to look at it.” The Super Bowl is your only chance for his distraction level to be high enough to get all this useless paper out of the house. Never mind recycling it - he might spot it on his next trip - bag it and drag it with all the wet garbage. I know it’s against the rules, but live on the edge once in a while.
Just like the leg lamp in A Christmas Story, this is your opportunity to break any ugly cup of lamp that needs to leave. I was once able to dispose of a set of four cups with deer heads on them during the Super Bowl. I put new hefty mugs in their place, and he never noticed the switch.
They say honesty is important in a relationship. Don’t you believe it. Stealth and a poker face will do more for your relationship than you know. I learned that from my husband who could tell me he attended a fly fishing show and only spent $75 on new equipment with a straight face and direct eye contact so perfect, he could have won an Oscar. I learned I could pursue the much over rated truth, or simply estimate what he really spent and give myself permission to spend the same on my next shopping day, plus interest for him lying to me in the first place. It must have worked, because we never argued about money, or watching the Super Bowl.
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