Writing?

ok, here's a story. post one back, and i'll read it, and buddy it back out to you with my input.

The Haircut

        My wife always had long hair that fell down her back in waves. So when she came home the other day and all her hair was gone—lopped off above the shoulders—I knew something was wrong.


        “Oh wow, Lindsey, you’ve been to the salon,” I said as she came through the door with an armful of grocery bags. 


        We put away the groceries in silence. She began peeling a large zucchini with great focus. When she finished with the zucchini, she switched to carrots. She never looked up from the sink. 


        “What’s for dinner tonight?” I finally asked.


        “Eggplant,” she said.


        “I thought we were having chicken parmesan.”


        “I’m trying something new. We’re going vegetarian for a while.”


        “Oh, ok,” I said. 


        I settled down in my favorite chair in the living room and held the newspaper over my face. First the haircut, and now vegetarianism. She was clearly sending me a stern message. But what?


        Maybe I had been too selfish lately and hadn’t spent enough time with her? Maybe the haircut was a cry for attention? Yes, that was it. She knew I always loved her long hair, and this was her way of punishing me for watching football on Sunday instead of going to church. And just last week I had refused to go shopping for new draperies.


        It was time to make a change. I vowed to bring her a little gift home every day after work the next week. And that weekend we’d go out on a date—just me and her—to her favorite restaurant. And then on Sunday, I’d go with her to church.


        On Monday, I put my plan into action. When I returned from work, she was folding laundry. I snuck up behind her, kissed her on the neck.


        “I’m home!” I said, and I produced a dozen red roses from behind my back.


        A look of pleasure and surprise flashed across her face for a nano-second then vanished.


        “That’s sweet of you, Peter. But I’m allergic to roses. Didn’t you know that?”


        “Oh yeah,” I said. “I’ll take them outside, no problem. And you know what else? I’m gonna make you dinner tonight. How does some tofu stir-fry sound? You just sit back and relax and leave everything up to me.”


        After dinner, I did the dishes.


        “Just take it easy,” I told her.


        “Ok then, I’m going upstairs to read a book.”


        “Read a book?”


        “Is something wrong with that?”


        “But after dinner…usually, that’s Facebook time.”


        “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I decided to shut down my Facebook account. It’s time for me to stop living vicariously through friends. It’s time for me to live my own life.” And with a flourish, she vanished upstairs.


        Wow. First the haircut. Then vegetarianism. Then renouncing Facebook. 


        “Man, Pete,” I thought. “Things are deteriorating quickly here. You gotta lay on the attention as much as possible and as soon as possible. It’s the only way.”  I promptly got on the phone and moved up our reservation at Le Château from Friday to Tuesday. 


        After work the next day, I brought Lindsey home a box of fine chocolates, which she rejected because they had milk in them and she was “extending her vegetarianism into veganism.” Then, when I told her about the dinner reservation for that night, she said, “But they don’t have a single vegan item on the menu!” And she stomped upstairs in a tizzy.


        “It’s ok!” I called after her. “I’ll make you dinner tonight! What about portabella burgers? Baba Ghanoush? Veggie pot-stickers?”


        She turned around at the top of the stairs and glared. “What’s gotten into you? Why are you acting so…NICE?!?”


        I settled into my favorite chair and held the newspaper over my face. 


        Maybe I should directly ask her what’s wrong? Sometimes it’s best to be upfront about things. But if I asked her, she’d say, “What’s wrong? The problem is that you don’t even know what’s wrong! That’s what’s wrong!” Such is the logic of the female.


        “Too much,” I thought as I glanced over the newspaper headlines.


        One in particular caught my attention. It said: “Nice Guys Finish Second, Women Finish Last.” It was all about salary discrimination in the workforce. But it was the first part of the headline that made me re-think my tactics. If nice guys finish second, then who finishes first? Bad guys. Maybe that’s what my wife really wanted: a bad boy who could stand on his own two feet like a real man.


        So I searched through the freezer until I found a slab of frozen ground beef. I defrosted it in the microwave and cooked myself some big, juicy hamburgers on the skillet.


        “What’s going on here?” my wife asked when she came down for dinner. “Are you cooking meat? What happened to the portabella burgers?”


        “Baby, if you want vegetables, cook ‘em yourself. This man here has got to have his cow.”


        The next day after work, I found Lindsey in her garden. “I’m using my vegetables for dinner. Don’t you even think of cooking any meat.”


        But I said, “Aw, I’m gonna go eat at the pub tonight with Mitch. And I’m taking the motorcycle.”


        “The motorcycle? You haven’t driven that rusty thing in years.”


        Before leaving, I changed into a sleeveless t-shirt and pulled the tarp off my motorcycle—a Suzuki B-326 World Cruiser. It took me a dozen tries to get the thing started, but soon I was off.


        “May my wife be damned,” I thought as wind whipped against my face. “Can’t no woman hold back this ramblin’ man.”


        After my fish and chips and a few beers, I decided it would be best to head home and check on the old wifey. She was sitting at the computer.


        “Ah, back on Facebook?” I asked, pleased to see her progress. A day of acting like a bad boy, and my wife was already reverting back to her old ways.


        “Not exactly,” she said. “I’m just doing some research.”


        “Oh yeah? Into what?”


        “Me and Betsy and Gloria: we’ve all decided to run a half-marathon together. I’m trying to find a race nearby sometime in October. That’ll give us plenty of time to train.”


        My heart nearly stopped. An insuppressible wave of darkness and fear washed over me. I thought back on every girl I had ever dated. After we broke up, they always, without exception, began training for half-marathons. I’d see an ex out at a bar, and she’d proudly tell me, “Yeah things are going great! I’m an account executive now, and I’m training for a half-marathon too!” 


        So now I was dealing with the haircut, veganism, a Facebook ban, and a half-marathon. It was all too much. Before I knew it, she’d be doing yoga.


        I settled in my favorite chair and covered my face with the paper. I was doomed. I had tried my best, and now I was doomed. I decided I had no choice left but to confront her directly.


        I marched over to the computer. 


        “Listen Lindsey!” I fumed. “This last week you’ve been acting real weird and you know it. First you cut your hair, then you went vegetarian, then you quit Facebook and decided to run a half-marathon. And I’ve tried EVERYTHING in my power to make things better, but nothing has worked. I played the good guy and the bad boy and everything in between. So now I need to know. Just tell me outright, and don’t lie to me. What is it that has upset you so much?”


        My wife couldn’t look me in the eye. “Do you really want to know?” she asked faintly.


        “Yes! Of course!” I demanded.


        “Are you sure?”


        “Tell me now!”


        “Fine then!”


        She stormed out of the room, and when she came back she was carrying my secret duffel bag.


        “Look what I found hidden away in the attic when I was searching for the 4th of July decorations! What do you have to say about this?!?” 


        She unzipped the bag and dumped the contents

onto the kitchen table.

        Out poured a three-foot studded dildo shaped like the statue of liberty, 200 extra-small condoms, 36 pornographic magazines featuring castrated elderly men, a 20 page photo album of me dressed up like a woman and getting flogged by an army of eunuch midgets, a gigantic tub of lard, handcuffs and nun-chucks, a “pocket-pussy” molded from the asshole of a 13 year-old Filipino boy, 3 pairs of high heels, 10 DVD’s from the “Hot Asian Butt Boys on Crack” series, 4 canisters of whipped cream, and 10 yards of extra-large, diamond shaped anal beads covered in shit and dried blood.


        “Oh yeah, that…” I said. 
/r/infp Thread Parent