There are ways to get your wife to do what you want her to do.

Yes, I'm aware that the ratio of men to women in this forum is something like 2 to 8. Doesn't matter. I'll pass it along to the more, shall we say, discerning of wives, or future wives, and let them gorge themselves on inside information. For the men, this should be valuable at any price.

If you, in fact, have no intention on being a wife in the near future, be honorable and go read somebody else's rant. Thanks.

Tonight Ally made hot dogs for dinner. That's a nice way of saying she had no intention of allowing me to spend money on a delicious pizza when she "already had hot dogs out and the buns are just north of stale so why do you wanna spend good money on pizza when I can just go ahead and..."

I just lost 50% of the males reading this column. Sorry fellas, I know the drill and so do you.

Anyways, my ritual hot dog, appearing in this the 7,003rd episode of 'Outfoxed gets hot dogs for Dinner', will normally be adorned with a series of condiments so as to further fool myself into thinking that I'm actually eating something new and unique. One of those add-ons is pickle relish.

Ally actually stops me short of getting it out of the fridge and says "We're out of relish. Sorry, forgot to pick it up last time."

Well now. A younger married man might well take this as his cue to lecture on the importance of pickle relish. That if required to eat freaking hot dogs for 15% of your yearly caloric intake it should be considered mandatory to have said relish on hand at all times. I should know, I did a stand up lecture series for years at the house.

Enter the voice of the mature (read, ancient and doddering) married sloth. Who actually voices no words at all, but merely accepts his lot in life with a nod and a bit of sadness creasing his parched lips (hint: eating a lot of salty food will help with the parched lips bit, about 1 in 10 times you can actually get a beer this way without even asking). By not creating a scene, you see, you set up Act 2.

Wife will later approach, possibly on the same day, and inform you that she is going to the grocery store. She will ask this question:

"Is there anything you can think of that we need?

"Yep. We need relish." Say this with just a whisper of a smile. Put a little humor into the whole situation. She will then reply:

"Oh yeah, geez. I'm glad you reminded me. Thanks, honey."

Two things will then happen. Having asked for, and received above reply she will pivot and begin to make strides toward the door, and she will believe in her heart that the given answer is the only thing you have to say, simple as it is. Wives are like that. They believe the male capable of only one given thought at a time. However, now is the time to play a little offense there, Kareem.

"Uh... say dear? I'm sure you noticed we are out of......" Now I'll let you fill in the blank, because it is important that you have done your homework at this point. Don't get greedy. But a few well timed purchases here and you'll be sitting pretty for at least a week.

Just don't block her car in the driveway with your own, like I just did. You must allow for a graceful exit. After all, it is imperative that the wife never be allowed to drive your vehicle. She may well find that stash of Doritos in the back seat. Or God knows what else.

Don't forget the rule about spending money, either. If you have any intention of buying that new 400 disc CD changer (a valuable and obviously needed capital gain), the thing which is impossible to hide in the car given that it has no intrinsic value in there, you must plot a diversion. My policy is to just bite the bullet and plan to spend more on that changer than you planned.

Never, ever enter the house with just the CD changer (or what have you) in hand. A nearly sure fire way to get over is to have about $50 cash, green cash, in hand. "Look honey, the new changer was on sale and I thought you could use the extra fifty." There isn't a woman born who can resist that line. Come to think of it, it would probably work on me, too.

Sure, you can try the time honored end-around method. Sneak the changer in, hide it with similar looking equipment and never use it for 6 months. Then gradually shuffle components around. Pull off a little more of the camoflauge. Start dropping hints that you'd like to update the "OLD" changer someday. This has actually worked in field tests. Not that I would know.

Problem with this is, by the time your changer is ready to use without guilt or subterfuge the damn thing is outdated anyway.

*But it's the thrill of the chase,* you remind yourself. No wonder I'm plucking white hairs out of my soup. I've had one too many thrills in my ceaseless quest to liven up the monotony of life.

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