The Lesser of Two L-Words

By Melanie Lynne Hauser

Here’s a pop quiz for you. Say you were downloading all the old pictures on your camera, and you stumbled upon a photo of - yourself. Say that that photo was one of the better ones you’ve seen lately (i.e., your triple chins weren’t in evidence, your eyes were open, and you didn’t look like you’d just swallowed a small animal). Say that you even liked it enough to put it in its own special folder on your laptop, one titled "Surprisingly not awful picture of me, to be used whenever I'm interviewed by the local paper or People magazine or some other highly unlikely event." (Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)

Say that, in a fit of girlish frivolity, you emailed your husband this photo, too.

Now, there are several ways your husband could respond. You may even anticipate some of them — “Huh, nice picture.” Or “Is your hair really that color?” Or maybe even total silence, which you know by now not to take as a comment, but rather recognize it for what it is — that he never opened the file because he got distracted by the next item in his inbox. So he never saw it.

But no. Your husband does not respond in any of these totally acceptable ways. Instead, when you coyly ask him what he thought of said photo, he responds thusly:

“You know, I thought you looked a little butch, to be honest. Like a lesbian.”

Now, how would you respond to this? Here are your choices:

A) Hit him over the head with the closest blunt object (which might be — now this is purely hypothetical, mind you, so I’m not saying it was — the pooper scooper used for cleaning the cat’s litter box), then run crying to your bedroom.

B) Hit him over the head with the above-mentioned blunt object, then put your hands on your hips and lecture him about being a typically pathetic male with a school boy’s fantasy involving girl-on-girl sex.

C) Hit him over the head with the above-mentioned blunt object, then coolly grab the closest credit card and inform him that obviously, you have a ton of shopping to do, being that your entire wardrobe needs an immediate feminine upgrade. And that he needn’t expect you back in time for dinner.

But wait! Before you can choose any of these options, suppose he gets a clue. He looks at your face (all three chins trembling) and starts to backpedal. He stutters and stammers and comes up with what, in his mind, is a brilliant save:

“Well, actually, now that I’m looking at this picture again, I’d have to say I was wrong about the lesbian thing. Really, what you look like is a rancher. Like someone who raises llamas.”

What do you do? What do you do with a man like this, who thinks that telling you that you look like someone who raises llamas is a big improvement over telling you that you look like a lesbian? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) What? WHAT, I ask you??????

Please, if you come up with a solution, let me know. Better still —

Write it down and send it to:

“Melanie's Husband”

c/o PO Box He’s Never Having Sex Again

Dog House City, USA.