In that funhouse we call marriage,

you should always take time to analyze any arguments that you and your mate get in to. As soon as your brain is alleviated from the stress of your most recent squabble or coup d’etat, you should contemplate what just transpired.

Your husband most likely does not have a cunning plot to make you miserable. He simply lives amongst the testosterone induced. While you wonder how many moons his world has, he wonders how Clark Gable got that bald spot in the middle of his moustache. While he sits in the living room sulking as you are in the bedroom watching Beaches, think about that fact and learn from it. If you pay attention and notice the patterns, you can avoid some ghastly mêlée.

Sooner or later he will come into the room to see if your attitude has changed. That's so silly. The argument they hope to avoid by avoiding you is inevitable. A woman simply must vent at times and a man simply must let her get it out of her system. Then he must respond in some way (or move out) before any attitudes change. Case closed. The woman will try to make a point and she will stand steadfastly by her point without even considering the possibilty that there may be another solution. That is just as senseless. A man’s attitude changes no faster during an argument than a woman’s does while she is receiving the silent treatment. If he does it again tomorrow, and you ask him in the right way, you will realize that yesterday, you wasted a lot of time.

It’s all in the presentation. After months of nagging and harassing a man to shave on his days off, you will be about as successful as Roseanne selling charm school lessons. If you just say something like, “Do you realize that you are the only man I ever see unshaven?” and appeal to his ego, you will get much farther. I can’t explain it as I don’t understand it, but the testosterone induced are ego driven.

How else would you explain bad toupees and the fact the Elvis impersonators get laid?

Only the male ego could convince a man that, as Rick would say, “My hair part has always been there.”

No, the part is never behind the ear. You are bald dude. If you can see A HINT OF SCALP through your comb-over, "camouflage" thing YOU ARE BALD.

Many mysteries remain to flummox us all and stymie those in search of the Rosetta Stone of male behavior.

Hocking lugies is one such mystery. Why in the world would someone just snort and spit like that? It's positivily horrid. Some men have no problem urinating on impulse, "hiding" behind any object in the area. Most don’t mind if their butts stick out a little from behind the object. Some don’t mind if you see their stream. (I have known a woman or two who wouldn’t hesitate to let it rip, but most of them are missing teeth and live in a trailer park in Kennesaw, Georgia.)

Only ego could convince a man that he could charm a woman into forgetting that he left the toilet seat up (NO! We don’t look. We assume it is where we left it.), the whiskers in the sink and the fact that he perpetrates habitual, never ending farts upon you.

But, once again, I digress. If you have a good one who does nothing worse than sulk, whine, and complain that you broke the yolk or that the car got hit while you were driving it, be nice to him. I don’t think they can help themselves. I think they really are just big old little boys. Utilysing the ego stroking approach, is smarter, more efficient, and apparently, they plum can’t help themselves. So, just make little mental notes about their behavior during any given quarrel. If you do, eventually, you will be able to head an intensification of hostile activity off at the proverbial pass. This will take time, observation and constant study (with note taking!). That may seem like a lot of work but it took a French officer of Napolean's engineering corp to find The Rosetta Stone and IT had been hidden for about 1500 years.

So, ladies, other than ego, what clues do you have that might add another piece of the puzzle?

Meg