So awhile ago I go out to Dick’s Sporting Goods to find a pair of running shoes. For Father’s Day, my kids had put a note in a little box saying that is what they wanted to get me. Great, as I needed a new pair of shoes. I walk in the door having spent the last hour looking at shoes proclaiming, “I found a nice pair,” and the first question my wife asks me is, “Do they fit?” What kind of a question is that? I hold back the desire to answer “No, they were having a sale on size 8’s so I bought a pair for my size 11 feet”, and answer “Yes.” I don’t know one guy who would ask that question. A “Cool” would be the most common response. Or if they knew me well enough, they might throw out the taunt, ”What the hell do you need running shoes for?”

Now if this was the only time this had happened, or my wife was the only women in my life that had ever asked a non-necessary question, my mocking thought would not have been quite so quick, but this is a regular occurrence in my life. I recently attached a Brita filter to my sink and my wife’s first question was, “Does it work?” Is the need to ask a question so great in women that any old question will do? It’s a Brita filter, I just had to screw it to the faucet by hand, it took 2 minutes. “No honey, it doesn’t work. I’m going to have to hire a contractor and cordon off the kitchen for a week.” Of course, it works. And if you have that little faith in my ability, you married really, really poorly. If a guy asked questions like that, they wouldn’t be your friend for long, unless they were an irreplaceable power forward on your local old-man basketball league team or they always paid for beer, hopefully both.

Why can guys just leave things alone and be quiet and women need to tear things apart with questions? Maybe it’s your guy friends always assume you have a higher level of competence than all the women in your life. If I went to the store and bought a barbecue, the first question my wife would ask is, “Are you going to be able to make it work?” While my guy friends would ask, “How many BTU’s does that bad boy have?” And unless it was some obviously wrong answer like 1.8 million, my friend’s response would be “nice” and we both would nod quietly in understood male camaraderie.

So what is it that makes women ask questions about topics that don’t really need an answer? The world may never know. By the way I took my shoes back because after I wore them around the house for a while, they didn’t seem to fit very well. Damn her.