CUTTING REMARKS

I was thinking the other day about all the women in my neighborhood who mow their lawns. My wife has never mown our lawn. Lawn mowing season is here a little early this year, so once again I’m trying to figure out what the problem is.

I want to ask her about this, but I am afraid she’ll assume I want her to mow the lawn. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. If she started mowing the lawn, that would jeopardize our relationship by altering the delicate balance between my wife’s independence and her femininity.

Of course, if she really wanted to mow the lawn, I wouldn’t stop her.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not accusing Mary Ellen of being lazy. She works very hard outside the home as a college administrator, putting in five long days each week. I’m just really curious why she won’t mow the lawn.

When we first got married, we lived in an apartment and she really had no opportunity to hone this skill. You don’t see a lot of lawn-mowing women who live in apartments. Then we moved to a condo and again there were few really good role models for her. When we bought a house, I started mowing the lawn that spring and have mown our lawn for 30 years since, whenever the grass has gotten too high or the dandelions needed their heads chopped off.

Mary Ellen has never expressed any interest in this endeavor. I do vaguely remember her saying that mowing is man’s work and I should accept that. I think at the time I was changing Brett’s diaper and she was rewiring a lamp.

When I decided to marry Mary Ellen, I guess it didn’t matter at the time. After all, she was intelligent, beautiful, sensitive and caring. She was all a man could want. I assumed that if push came to shove, she’d mow the lawn. But it never even came to push.

Sometimes I watch other women in the neighborhood mowing and I realize that I probably wouldn’t want my lovely wife to do this. All the women wear ratty old jeans and have no make-up on. I wouldn’t want my wife to look like this. Of course, I wouldn’t have to watch her mow. I could go in and watch baseball and then she could freshen up before dinner.

During the summer, I prefer to sit on a lounge chair and sip lemonade, but instead I have to cut the grass. That’s where a wife who’s willing to mow comes in really handy. Not that it’s that important. Just sayin.’ Come to think of it, it’s chauvinistic for a man to make his wife mow the lawn. On the other hand, it’s also chauvinistic for a man to assume that a woman doesn’t know how to mow the lawn. Maybe she really wants to, but is afraid her husband doesn’t think she can do it. I’m sure that’s it.

My friend, Steve: his wife mows the lawn. He was over the other day and asked me why Mary Ellen never mows the lawn. I was as honest with him as I could be. “I don’t know, Steve. I never really thought about it.”

HOME. HOME AT THE RANGE

When we log on to news websites each morning, there’s a parade of catchy headlines motivating us to click on each link to read more. Then we are overwhelmed by provocative ads persuading us to buy various products. Here are a few of the more eye-catching examples from today:

The Worst Time of Day to Buy Meat

A Vegetable That Can Remove Rust

The Celebrity Chef Who Admits He’d Eat a Human

How Your Electric Can Opener Can Kill You

Some attention-getters, to be sure, but one in particular on my AOL homepage really caught my eye:

Home Cooking Increases Longevity

I know what you are saying. “This is incredible! It can’t be true. Do you really still have an AOL account?”

The article reports that people who cook up to five times a week at home were 47 percent more likely to still be alive after 10 years. I’m no expert, but let me explain why this may be the dumbest study ever done. This will take a few minutes, so if you want to order a pizza for dinner first, no problem.

In 2002 researchers interviewed 1,800 people, age 65 and older and living in Taiwan, about their dietary habits. They called the seniors back this year to see how they were doing. Most of the people who had claimed to eat out at least 70 percent of the time could not be reached. Apparently they had died, or so said the scientists. This is just a wild guess, but I bet they were out for dinner when the phone rang at 6 p.m. Or, because they were all near 80, maybe some of them couldn’t get to the phone in time. Am I the only person to think of this stuff?

But here’s the big flaw in the study. Those Taiwanese who claimed to be cooking at home and living the healthy lifestyle, well, if you think about it, they were probably eating Chinese food just about every night, weren’t they? They can call it “eating in,” if it makes them feel better, but here in the Wolfsie household, we call that take-out.

I’m quite sure that data on the hazards of dining out were not available in the ’50s when I was growing up, which is why my mother was often heard saying to my father, “Would it kill us to go out for dinner once in a while?” Apparently Dad thought it would. He I guess he was not only a cheapskate, but also a visionary.

We were planning to go to Panera for a light salad and a bowl of soup this evening, followed by a brisk walk after eating. Instead, we stayed home, barbequed some ribs, finished off a quart of Ben and Jerry’s, and sacked out in front of the TV. (I wanted to do the healthiest thing for my family so we’ll be around for the next Super Bowl in Indy.)

When Mary Ellen suggested we go out for a bite tomorrow evening instead, I reminded her that according to the research, it would be a real plus for the entire family if she prepared a home-cooked meal every night of the week. I believe I am quoting her response accurately:  “You should live so long.”