Leonard Gray / L’Observateur / April 7, 1999

Men deal with a lot of grief in their lives, not all of it from their wives.

It’s just there’s a lot of stress in day-to-day living and much of it stems from words they will never hear. Allow me to elaborate.A man will never hear: Thank you, dearest, for interrupting and correcting me! I truly appreciate your superior wisdom, knowledge and experience in this matter.

Pardon me, sir! I forgot about the time and apologize for interrupting your dinner. Please allow me to mail you a brochure about our aluminumsiding offer or, better yet, here’s my home telephone number so you can call me at your convenience, if you’re interested.

Gosh, Dad! I never knew you were so hip! I’m terribly sorry for cutting you off back there! Please, accept this $20 for a good lunch as a gesture of my good will.

We’ve been re-evaluating your work here and realize you are much too valuable an employee to continue to pay you these poor wages. Pleaseallow us to triple your salary, add on stock options and provide a hefty retirement package.

Please, Dad! I would really appreciate and honor your opinion as to my selection of (pick one or more) clothes, friends, music, career and place I’ll live for the rest of my life.

Welcome to the neighborhood! You may play music as loudly as you like, mow your lawn at you own convenience, have huge parties and you’ll never hear a peep out of us! Thank you for considering buying a new truck here! We’ve checked on your financial background and, since you are such a valued customer everywhere you go, we’d think it a coup if you’d accept this fully-loaded truck for free. As a promotional opportunity, we’d also like to pay you toappear in our TV commercials, since you are so highly regarded in the community.

There’s nothing in the world I enjoy more than an evening alone with you, darling. We’ll take the weekend to this little fishing resort I heardabout, I’ll clean the cook the fish you catch, and we’ll have a wonderful time! Don’t worry about the cost, Dad’s paying for it all.

I am grief-stricken that you have engine trouble with your car! Please allow us to make all the repairs for free and, if you don’t have complete satisfaction, we’ll replace your vehicle for free as well.

You have just won the All-American Magazine Sweepstakes and won $50 million. We checked with the IRS and they have refused to accept anytaxes on this money.

This is the White House calling. We have a problem only you can solve forus. In exchange, we’ll make certain that, in your case, you’ll receive allthe Social Security you paid into the system.

You have a wonderful, perfect body, and it’s all natural! A man can dream, can’t he?

Leonard Gray is a reporter for L’Observateur

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