How Barbie Invented Ken

So we’re going on vacation. Heck, this must be like our third vacation…in the thirty years we’ve been married.

No, we don’t seem to vacate a lot, but now we’re going to Mexico to spend a week in a beautiful house on the beach that my sister owns.

We’re going to shop, eat, talk swim, and relax.

I’m going to do that. He’s probably going to read all the church manuals and get months ahead in Sunday School.

He will produce a succession of deep sighs as we wander through cute stores that sell pottery and glassware and ceramic animals painted bright colors.

He’ll like wandering along the beach for about a half hour, and then he’ll start wondering if we’re there yet.

Do you ever wonder what would happen if you could change your spouse into exactly what you wanted him to be? It would have to be at least five different guys.

I’d want a guy who was friendly, unless he was too social and spent every night with his buddies watching sports.

I’d also want that guy who, when I say, “Honey, I think something’s wrong with the car,” he would immediately race it down to the shop and get someone to check it out.

What if I was married to this cultivated, artsy sort of person who wanted to go to Salt Lake every weekend to see foreign language films?

What if husbands were like paper dolls and they came with a set of different costumes so you could make them into anything you wanted?

Like he’d have a tuxedo costume he could wear once a year to somewhere fancy with shrimp cocktails and steak.

Then a rugged outdoorsman costume would be interesting. A plaid shirt and great blue jeans, but he wouldn’t want to spend October in the mountains in a blind waiting for a deer that I’d have to cook for the two years. He would build me a cabin and keep the fireplace going all winter while I sat and read.

And he could have a tanned swimsuit look that you could put over his regular body and a cardboard convertible we could ride around in.

The problem would be you would have to decide everyday what you wanted him to be. Every morning, during that first half hour when you’re too groggy to think, you’d have to dress up your husband to be who you needed that day.

It would be turn out to be just another thing, like the dishes and the laundry. Get up, get the costume, and argue with him about why you want him to wear it.

What if he wanted to change me around everyday? Not a good plan.

Just when you think you have a great idea, boom, you start to see the flaws.

I guess this is just another idea that will end up in the remainder bin in my Ways I’d Fix the World if It Were Up to Me pile.