Funny Guy Friday… What's your bright idea?

     Funny Guy Friday is written by my husband, Mark. So… I married a funny guy...
     The other day, Cheryl and I went out to buy paint for our newly refurbished bathroom. I wanted to add a little color and Cheryl wanted to get beige. We discussed it several times and each time, she would finish by explaining that she would find the right color beige. This prompted me to ask why she always ignores my ideas. She calmly explained that she does not ignore my ideas, it's just that her ideas are always better. We got beige….. and it looks great, but that is not the point.
    The point is that all of her ideas are not always better than my ideas. For instance, last night she announced that she had come up with a new idea. Every night, we (and by we she really means me as head of the household) will read a classic story to the kids. I find it curious that I am the head of the household when it comes to reading but not when it comes to choosing paint colors.
     Anyway, she sprung this on us at 9:00 p.m., in the middle of a silly Disney show that we (and by we I mean everyone but Cheryl) were watching. My idea, on the other hand, was to continue to watch the silly show. Since she thought her idea was better, she stuffed the book in my hands and we plowed ahead with the reading of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.  I just wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV. I had no desire to journey anywhere.
     After some debate about whether or not I should read the introduction, I started reading Chapter 1 at 9:35 p.m. By 9:36, my girl was fast asleep, drooling on our beautiful leather club chair. By 9:42, I began slurring my words, and by 9:45, I, too, was fast asleep, drooling all over our beautiful leather couch.
     When I woke up, the kids had already turned the TV back on and were watching some new mindless Disney show. Now, if she had just listened to my idea, we all could have watched TV without napping through the end of one show and the beginning of another.  I somehow found it gratifying that the kids urged me to be quiet so as not to wake the sleeping dragon who would then re-breathe fire on my TV idea.
     There are other instances when my ideas have been better than hers. In fact, the very first time that we had to make a big decision, my idea was better than hers.
     We got engaged after six weeks of dating. I wanted to get married immediately and start our life together. She insisted that we wait at least six months so her mom could plan a wedding. I explained that my mother could plan a wedding in six days; we needed to get this show on the road. Besides, she went on to explain that by the time we would get married, she would have saved about $10,o00. Wow! I guess I could wait for 10k. I mean, I wanted to start our life together, but we also had to eat. What the heck, we'd wait.
     Nine months later we had a beautiful wedding and a great honeymoon in St. Barth's.  When we got back from the honeymoon, I inquired about our newly combined savings account, keeping in mind that I just blew a bunch of cash in St. Barth's. I was shocked to learn that she had less than a $600 in the bank. In the nine months that we had waited, I am sure we could have managed to scrape together $600. Not that I keep score or anything but that would be Mark: two good ideas... and Cheryl: zero!
     Then there was the infamous front door controversy. We have a bright red front door, very inviting and easy to give directions to guests coming for the first time. It's the the first house on the left with the bright red front door. I loved our red door. One summer day, Cheryl came up with the bright idea of painting the door black. Black is the opposite of inviting, and not noteworthy to would-be guests.
     Once again, she ignored my color sense and went ahead with her plan. I must say it was kind of gratifying that after two weeks she wanted to paint it red again. This prompted my son Matthew and me to come up with a song that we like to sing to Cheryl every time we hear a particular Rolling Stones song. Our song goes something like this:
   I see a red door and I want to paint it black
   I see the black door and I want to paint it back
   I should have listened to what my husband said
   The black's no good at all, we should have kept it red  
   I see a red door and I want to paint it black
   I see the black door and I want to paint it back
   I see the neighbors walk by dressed in their summer clothes  
   They turn their heads away until that black door goes
     (Feel free to strut around like Mick Jagger when you sing this; it adds to the experience)
     Then there is this blog. As I wrote in my very first FGF, I thought this was going to be a funny blog about the crazy day-to-day things that happen in our day-to-day life. Instead, Cheryl's idea was to tackle two non-controversial topics like religion and politics. Although we have gained some conservative, Catholic friends, we have lost all of our old liberal Protestant friends. FGF was my idea to help soften the cherylyouaremine blog and win back some of our old friends.
      The result is that there are more hits on Friday than any other day of the week. Who cares that I embarrass my wife and kids. Forget about the fact that every time something stupid happens, people suggest that I write about it. Ignore that people I haven't seen for months come up to me and ask, How is the new bathroom coming? or Thank goodness there wasn't a child in the car seat when it fell off of the roof of your car! And my personal favorite, Did you really shoot your son in the rear end?
     FGF is just another example of my ideas being better than hers.  
     To make my point even clearer, I just asked Cheryl if she could recall any other times when we went with her idea instead of mine, and it resulted in catastrophic consequences. Clearly annoyed, she wanted to know how far back she could go; could she go back to the moment right before she agreed to go out with me? It goes without saying that not dating me would have qualified as catastrophic. Besides that, her little joke was not very funny.
    She went on to point out that she has had plenty of great ideas that have worked out just fine and none of her ideas end with as I put it….catastrophic consequences. Well, we can agree to disagree.
    But the good news for her is that I have come up with yet another great new idea. My new idea is to keep her around and give her the opportunity to redeem herself. Besides, we are getting ready to re-paint the bedroom and we are going to have to select some colors that go with the new bathroom. You never know, she might luck out again.