Presence of Mind as a Birthday Gift

Like a dutiful wife, I gave my husband everything he wanted for his birthday--a redwood tree, some chicken manure soil enricher and two bottles of Oregon Pinot Noir. I resisted the usual urge to buy him some clothes that he would hate or some household items that I thought we needed.

And he was just happy as a lark. All I’ve ever really wanted was to make him happy.

But I did assert myself with a tiny little gift of my own choosing. It was one of those garage sale coups. A 1964 pamphlet from the Amy Vanderbilt Success Program for Women titled “How to Help Your Husband Get Ahead.” Who could resist this historic document?

The cover has drawings of the little woman standing behind hubby on the golf course; the little woman pouring hubby’s coffee while he reads; and finally, hubby out there making a confident presentation to the board. The suggestion is that if you carry his golf clubs and pour his coffee, he’ll be one lean mean money-makin’ machine.

The book opens with the following simple sentence from Amy V: “Most wives were they to tell the truth are ambitious for their husbands and this is to my mind as it should be.” This sets the Jane-Austen-with-a-shaker-of-martinis tone.

It was the world I grew up in and felt I could never succeed at. Frankly, I was far more concerned with my success in this world--not my husband’s. I was sure he would do just fine. But how could I possibly succeed in a world in which the perfect woman was a good cook, a good hostess and knew when to keep her mouth shut?

It’s true, in time, I did learn to cook. I went from the “I Hate to Cook Book” to “The Joy of Cooking” and dropped out shortly after “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” I learned to make dips and arrange cold cuts like a Japanese fan on a party tray. I learned to call chopped-up veggies “the crudites. “ I learned that rose was passe. I bought place mats with matching napkins.

But I never have learned when to shut up. When I was a kid, the teachers were always telling me to lock my mouth and throw away the key. I only pretended to throw away the key.

I have to admire my husband’s courage in marrying me. Especially when I think back to that party at his college where I first played hostess. The president of the college,

one Dr. Calvin Plimpton, was the guest of honor. I walked up to him with a bowl of Planters and said, “Have a plimpton, Dr. Peanut?”

Years later, when my husband was a teaching assistant, we attended a party at the department chairman’s. I went up to the hostess, the perfect faculty wife who was wearing a silver, sequined dress with a matching feathered headpiece, and said, “I didn’t realize this was a costume party.” It wasn’t.

Still later, when he was teaching in another department, we attended another chairman’s party. I chatted with the hip young bartender. “What’s a nice guy like you doing with jerks like these?” I asked him. “My parents are giving the party,” he said.

Sometimes I think the guy married me for the same reason that some people keep pit bulls. Every once in a while, the dog will go crazy and attack someone, and the owner will smile sheepishly and say, “She doesn’t mean any harm.”

He married me when I couldn’t even drive a car. I had no job, no dowry and I wanted to be a poet. He had seen me ruin Jell-O. I never understood why he did it. All these years I’ve asked him, “So why did you marry me?” Once he said, “I knew you’d turn a profit someday.” Wrong. He had no reason for knowing that.

Last year on his birthday, I asked him again: “Why did you marry me?”

“Lack of imagination,” he said.

No. I couldn’t accept that. “That’s what you say to explain why we stayed married.”

And this year, since he was so happy on his birthday, I nagged him again.

“I married you because you were nice to me,” he said.

A jug of wine, a bag of chicken manure and thou. It had the ring of truth.