Today’s Song:  Take Good Care of You (Johnny Bristol)

I’ve always loved the beginning of this song – “Take good care of you, dear, just for me.  And I’ll take care of me for you.”

11http://youtu.be/Ly01q2jT9m8 – in case you want to open it yourself.

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Every now and again, Alpha Hubby drops a few lines into the atmosphere and it change things.  He isn’t one for yammering and won’t come right out and tell me what to do (except once), but underneath all the manly man, chest-beating, growling exterior is a pretty darn wise guy.

Wise as in wisdom, not wise as in mafia hit man.  Just wanted to keep that straight.  Although there was that one time…

*Ahem*  I don’t know how long we’d been married when this took place – a couple of years or so.  It was just an “in passing” comment.  I remember I’d put on makeup to go out.  I was just making a town run – grocery store, bank, something along that line.  No special place, just errands.

So Alpha Hubby notes the makeup and says, “Why is it a lot of the time, women will dress up and put makeup on just to go to town, but not for the person who should matter most?”

SHUT UP.

He wasn’t saying I usually looked like a dog.  He wasn’t trying to get into a fight.  I’m not even sure he realized what he’d said.  He just made a comment in passing that hit me like a ton of bricks.  That happens a lot in our marriage.  This time he was… (oh man, I HATE to say this but…) he was rrrrrr.  Rrrrrr.  Oh for pete’s sake.  He was right.  Man, am I never going to hear the end of this.

I always dress and put on makeup to go to town.  It is ingrained into me and I absolutely cannot go to town looking sloppy.  I was raised that way.  It was considered bad form to not look your best when in public.  Sometimes when I see people around me in Wally World, I wish we still had those “training rules” because I gotta tell ya, some women in sweat (or yoga) pants should be outlawed. 

And isn’t it funny that we will dress up if we’re going to see other people.  Even the grocery store full of strangers will get to see us looking better than we usually do at home.   I mean, I have to stop and put on makeup and change clothes to go out the door into public.  What does that say about how I looked at home?

In Alpha Hubby’s world, the most important person – him – should be the one receiving full benefit of me looking my best – not strangers.  (And yes, it goes the opposite way, too – men not taking care).  We can both look like we were drug through a knothole backwards.  After physically working all day, it can get scary!  But he was right about something…

When we were first married, I used to always stop at a certain point in time during the day so I could shower and change clothes.  I WANTED to look my best for when he walked in the door from working all day.  I may not put on that full-armour makeup, but I’d at least have mascara (blonde eyelashes gotta have it) and lip gloss on, with fresh clothes, looking better than someone who has her head in the oven sweating and scrubbing away, who glances up to say, “Oh, it’s you.”

He’s the same way – when he stops for the day (on weekends), he’ll shower and change clothes so that he looks decent (what I call his cabana-boy pants and nice t-top).  When he comes home from weekday work, he doesn’t grunge out for the evening.  He’s always been that way, too.

The whole point he made that day was this:  who is the most important person in our life (or should be)?  We should never lose focus of that and make sure we take better care of them than we do total strangers.

Alpha Hubby doesn’t expect me to meet him at the door in a slinky black dress, spike heels and holding out a cocktail to him – well, at least not on non-rendezvous nights.  And yeah, yeah, I know that was 60’s television sitcoms but you get my point.  Right?  While he doesn’t expect that, he likes and really appreciates when I stop and take the time to freshen up before he gets home.  It speaks to him.  It tells him I’m glad to see him and very glad he’s home.  It tells him he is important to me.  And he is.

So today, class, I hope you learned something important.  Take better care of those at home than you do everyone else in the entire world, including strangers.  There will be a test.