It’s Friday afternoon as I’m typing this.
I’m sitting at the kitchen counter in our room at the Lake of the Ozarks, and my wife is sitting in the living room watching CNN and impatiently waiting for me to finish this column.
The reason my wife is impatient is because she wants to go to something called an outlet mall. As I understand it, an outlet mall is a mall where they sell things for less money than they would cost at a non-outlet mall. When I asked my wife how outlet malls can sell things for less money than non-outlet malls, she told me to mind my own business.
So I did.
On Saturday we are leaving the Lake of the Ozarks and driving to Kansas City to go to something called a home show. My wife tells me that I will like the home show, but I don’t know. She also told me last fall that I would like going to a fashion show in Kansas City.
Me: “Why would I like a fashion show?”
Wife: “Because your daughter is in it.”
Me: “Oh.”
So I went to the fashion show, and I liked the parts that involved our 21-year-old daughter, Emma, but pretty much hated everything else.
Emma won’t be in the home show, so I’m thinking there will be little in it that will interest me.
I’m not even sure what a home show is. I’m guessing it’s a show about homes, but I don’t know.
My wife is excited about going to the home show. But she is more excited about seeing someone who she said is a New York housewife who will also be at the home show.
I’m not sure why my wife is excited about seeing a New York housewife, but I think it might have something to do about the “Housewives” shows she and Emma are always watching.
The New York housewife my wife is excited to see at the home show is Bethenny Frankel. My wife said she and Emma love Bethenny.
I don’t know anything about Bethenny, but I do know a little bit about the “Housewives” shows. The shows center around the lives of housewives from different parts of the world. You’ve got your New York housewives, your New Jersey housewives, your Orange County housewives, your Atlanta housewives, your Dallas housewives, your London housewives and — I think — your Fredonia, Kansas, housewives.
I think.
What happens in the “Housewives” shows is that one, or several, housewives do something that makes one, or several, other housewives mad. Then they all get together to argue about who did what to whom and who was right and who was wrong.
There is a lot of arguing in the “Housewives” shows.
Basically, the shows are pretty much the same as “SportsCenter” on ESPN. On “SportsCenter,” guys get together and argue about which teams will lose and which teams will win, and then later they get together to argue about who was right and who was wrong.
There is a lot of arguing on “SportsCenter”.
My wife keeps looking over my shoulder as I’m typing this. My wife doesn’t want me to write about the “Housewives” shows.
“You’ll make fun of them,” she says.
But I won’t make fun of them. First of all, other than what I just told you about them, I don’t know anything about the “Housewives” shows.
Unlike our president, I try not to talk about things that I know nothing about.
Also, because the housewives in the “Housewives” shows are women, I know better than to make them mad.
I mean, I don’t know the women in the “Housewives” shows, but my wife is a woman and I know I don’t want to make her mad.
So I’ll go to the home show, see Bethenny and not complain.
Because in June my wife has to go with me to St. Louis to a Cardinals game.
She better not make fun of baseball.
BONUS TRACK
After going to the home show and meeting Bethenny I can honestly say that I like her.
The home show? Not so much.
What happens at home shows is you walk up and down aisles while people try to interest you in whatever it is, they are trying to sell. After about 30 minutes at the home show I discovered that the secret was to not make direct eye contact with the people trying to interest you in whatever it is they are trying to sell.
My wife, on the other home product, loved the home show.
“This is fun,” she said, picking up her 27th brochure and her 129th business card.
She also bought new bed sheets. That’s right. My wife bought new bed sheets at a home show. I didn’t even know we needed new bed sheets.
“We don’t,” my wife said when I said that I didn’t know we needed bed sheets. “But at this price we have to buy them.”
“I see, “ I said, even though, as usual, I didn’t see.
But back to Bethenny. I liked her a lot. She was funny and she used many of the same bad words that I use.
I think that’s something.
“So, do you want to watch the “Housewives” shows with me now?” my wife asked after we met Bethenny.
“Do you want to watch “SportsCenter” with me?” I asked.
My wife said “No” when I asked that.
But that’s not all she said. She also used one of Bethenny’s bad words.
