What men, dads and fathers really think about

My wife is a talker.  Daddy Mojo is a thinker.  I listen a lot, talk a little-and even then it may be very fast or if I’ve been drinking, with a slight accent.   It wasn’t until a couple months into our relationship that she told me that she often couldn’t understand what I was saying; either because I was talking fast or with an accent, not that I needed to drink to be around her. 

At the end of the day she would ask me “so how was your day”?  “Fine”, I would simply state.  If she was lucky she may get a brief explanation like something was accomplished at work.   However, more often than not, it was a sincere, one word sentence followed by me asking how her day was.  Note to guys:  that’s a clever Jedi trick, ask them questions to deflect or postpone the questions that they’ll eventually ask you. 

Once we got married my domestic conversation abilities improved.  I would answer questions from my wife with multiple sentences and laugh about the days when I would give one word answers to her probing, insightful questions like ‘how was your day’? 

However, I started the odd habit of stretching during our conversations.  She would ask me something, or tell me a story and I would start to stretch.  Husbands who have studied advanced conversation avoidance know this technique as a way to act like you’re listening, but really put your mind elsewhere. 

Unfortunately my wife must have snuck into that class as she implemented a no stretching during a conversations rule.     

All women know the “What are you thinking about question”.  Some guys have even managed to get a handle on how to answer it with a straight face.    ‘I was just thinking about our wedding day’ or ‘just about how fortunate I am that we met when we did’ are two nice go to responses that I’ve never used, but have heard that they work. 

One night not so long ago we were preparing for bed and I said “Hummph”, aloud as I was thinking.   That was a mistake.  A.  Because I knew what I was thinking about and B. Because I suspected that my wife would ask what I was thinking about.

“I was thinking about the fact that they’re filming all of Captain America in England”, I said.  Unfortunately for my shallow gene pool, that was what I was thinking about.  I then proceeded to tell my bride that I thought it was ironic that they were not filming any of Captain America in the states. 

The emperor has no clothes.  See ladies, many times, ok-most of the time, when you ask us what we’re thinking about we’re not really thinking about anything.  Either that or we’re thinking about something stupid and will deflect it by a cute story of sudden attack of narcolepsy. 

If any dads have other ideas on how to avoid conversations I’d love to hear them, especially after my wife reads this.    Unless I get sleepy………