Paul Richardson: Seeing is ... well ... shocking

I was in my pre-teen years when the most influential person in my life imparted some of their vast wisdom. It was from my maternal-grandfather, who was the only grandpa influence that I had, as my paternal-grandfather had passed away before my birth.

Grandpa always called me Brother Paul. I was his oldest grandchild and I think his favorite, but that is probably debatable. He said, “Brother Paul, you are pretty pretty.” I wasn’t sure I knew what that meant and told him so. He followed with, “You are pretty ugly and pretty apt to stay that way.”

Now, that may sound harsh, but I have never seen another male member of our species that I find anything but ugly. Oh sure, there are some of those pretty boys that strut around when they are young, but at some point, nature starts to catch up with them and they are just as ugly as the rest.

Being aware of my calamity puts me in a position where I must woo the woman in my life every day. Sure, she is the good wife and a good wife she is, but she was also quite an attractive little critter and time hasn’t really harmed that much. Obviously that attribute ran more than skin deep.

One would think that since I am aware of this obvious impairment, I would in turn follow more of the rules of husbandry. Say for instance, ‘Happy wife, Happy life.’ I had never heard this phrase until I was in my thirties and by that time it was getting hard for me to apply new concepts.

Unfortunately, many of the philosophies that I adopted into my life were the ones that other men and specifically husbands, talk about in the man cave or the garage, but in their case it is just words that they say to each other. Not really actions that they live by.

I may be revealing areas into the Man Code that could backfire on me, but since I haven’t been really following the rules of the general population anyway, I might as well share. There is a philosophy that states, ‘it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.’ 

Silly me, I just assumed that actually had merit and was for general use. Turns out everyone saying that was not actually doing that. Then when it came time to seek forgiveness, I knew that the admonishment that I was going to receive would be the same for ten items as it was for a single item. 

With this in mind, I would hold off until I had accumulated a nice package deal for the goodwife and present it all at once. When we got done, everything was covered, and the focus usually concentrated on one major point and the other nine were just tokens. These would always be referred to as, “Well, they weren’t as bad as the ‘fill-in-the-blank’ one.”

So, when you see me and think, “Man, that guy is ugly.” Just know that I am aware of it and that is really just the icing on the cake!

(Paul Richardson's column, The Horse I Rode In On, is published weekly in the Neosho Daily News, Seneca News-Dispatch, Aurora Advertiser and on the Turner Report.)