Tips and techniques for enriching — no, surviving --a relationship

I really wasn’t all that crude and unrefined when I met Natalie, for past women had rendered me relatively palatable prior to being presented to the present one. Yet I’ve learned a great deal from Natalie over the years, to wit:

1) When a neighbor gives you a piece of pie on a plate, make sure that there’s some sort of desirable edible on that plate when you return it.

2) Dessert is much better when it’s served perhaps an hour after the main meal.

3) At minimum, always offer any visitor a beverage, but it’s better to have some emergency cookies stashed away as well.

4) Always keep the front door open until a departing guest has driven away. That way he knows that, should something go wrong with the car, or he’s forgotten something, there’s an open door.

5) If at all possible, try to avoid taking the last item on a retail store shelf — unless there are other reasonable options available, like an alternative brand at perhaps a higher price.*

6) Also in a retail store, retrieve any item that has fallen on the floor and place it somewhere it won’t be stepped on or otherwise damaged.*

7) When you lay a book on a table, the book should always be closed. Use a bit of paper to mark your place.

8) Using scrap paper in the printer? Keep it stored print-side up near the printer, and make sure that it is indeed blank on the other side.

9) It may appear as uniform and featureless as the Gobi Desert, but every bedsheet has a front and a back, and a top and a bottom. These are easily identified if you happen to be female.

10) Air travelers are familiar with rules forbidding jokes about aircraft hijackings at the airport. But a similar rule applies to any household containing a lady. There cannot and will not be any jokes or other crude levity concerning the availability of bathroom tissue, or hot water, or water itself, especially while the lady of the house may be showering.

11) Similarly, her automobile radio should not be left tuned to a mariachi station at high volume.

12) Any dishes left in the sink after a day’s festivities should be washed and otherwise dealt with while she is asleep.

* starred entries denote advice she’s gotten from me.

Mark Kinsler, kinsler33@gmail.com, mostly collects dust in our little old house in Lancaster under the supervision of Natalie and the two resident alley cats.

This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Tips and techniques for enriching — no, surviving --a relationship