marty took the kids on a play date a while back. when she came home she was morose. i asked what was wrong. she said she felt like she just walked off the set of 90210 and that all of her clothes were ugly, and out of style, and didn't fit her right and all these other moms not only managed to keep up with the latest trends but their clothes were also ironed and free of kool-aid and/or vomit stains. i studied marty momentarily, gauging if she was working towards a punch-line, because this is pretty unlike the girl i'm married to. there was no punch-line.

her observations about the moms at our kids' preschool are right though. they are stylish, not quite high-fashion but certainly trendily-appointed. think camouflage capris. they also somehow seem to always be freshly showered too. these are not the sorts of things the dearmitt-walter home can claim with any sort of daily regularity.

seeing my partner injured so, i jumped in as it seems men are wont to do. i said to her, 'marty, you're a parent. you know this. you accept this. they don't. they dress like teenage girls in a sophomoric attempt to transport themselves back to when they were the popular kid in school and lived at the mall because for them it is a way to escape the reality of their faltering adulthood."

my words did not hit the mark. later that day, marty called one of her three sisters. the sister said ... "marty, while you're looking at them wishing you looked nicer, they are probably looking at you wishing they had the self-esteem to not try so hard." yeah, i guess that's sorta ok advice. ok enough to mend marty's mood more than my own words at least. what do you say we call it a girl thing and leave it at that.

admittedly, after hearing the sisters take on things, i thought more about it. while we'll gladly take the self-esteem card, i don't know that it would work for everyone. for instance some of these grown, near-forty women wear thongs and frilly bras (i know this because so many of these items conspicuously peek out of their other teenager wear). the hottest piece of lingerie in our home is a 1987, threadbare, psychedelic furs concert tee marty sometimes wears to bed. unfortunately when she puts this wisp of a garment on she's not always attempting to ignite our relationship. i know this because when she looks at me looking at her in it, she sometimes sighs and says:

MARTY
don't even think it. i'm tired and i'm going to bed.

TROY
but you got THE shirt on.

MARTY
the only reason i got THE shirt on is because you forgot to wash whites again.

TROY
it could be fate talking to us.

MARTY
well, you or fate need to do a load of laundry before i'm taking any messages.

conversely, if she did ever come to bed in a bedazzled or satiny thong, we'd spend twenty minutes studying it, talking about how comfortable it was (or wasn't) and examining the physics of how it worked. marty would probably convince me to try it on and then we'd laugh hysterically at the outcome and i'd eventually do zany dances on the bed. after tiring of the sport i'd ask her to put the furs shirt on and she would and we'd return to our life in our home, which is quite a ways away from the 90210 zip code. and for us, gladly so.