Last week, my husband found out that he was elected into the
National Academy of Engineering. Long before him, over two decades ago, I was inducted into The National Academy of engineering Spouses. So I’ve
been feeling rather sorry for him. Just how many times can a man handle being
upstaged by his own wife?
In all these years, I never gave much thought to my appointment. But I found out recently that we, the nominees, are held in very high esteem by nominators and hangers-on. Here’s a look at how some of the spouses who have entered this hall of fame have engineered their destiny with ample forethought and a smidgen of deception.
- Engineering our way into bigger bank accounts
A friend and engineering colleague who shall go unnamed found that in a joint account her contributions were going largely unnoticed. So she opened another account, making sure that the monthly mortgage dues and the credit card payments decimated her husband’s side of the well. Of all the engineering marvels, including Da Vinci’s creations, this goes down as a remarkable feat by a high-performance wife who is also a whiz in number theory.
- Implementing the Dijkstra method
Anyone who has taken courses in computer science will tell you about the Dijkstra algorithm: for a given point, the algorithm finds the path with lowest cost (rather, the shortest path) between that point and every other point. Engineers always tout efficiency and economy. I’m an expert at finding the simplest thing my good man can do and the shortest way in which he can do it (because he always needs directions from point A to point B). But pretty soon, however, I will slide in one pit stop and another–and another. “Darling, while you’re there, can you do this? And can you stop there?” I do also apply one thing I learned in my ten years in the corporate world: “Need to know”. Don’t tell your man everything all at once.
- Smart Project Management and the formula “Complaint = Immediate Task Assignment”
After 25 years of being on the bleeding edge of laundry management, I’ve learned that complaints about shrinking sweaters and tri-colored underwear are best handled in this way: the task is immediately delegated to the complainer. Look at all the tasks that I delegated in this manner over the years: doing the bills, emptying the dishwasher, managing the finances, taking out the garbage, sorting clothes into whites and colored and driving.
- Genetically engineered habits
A wife's return policy can have a man in a tizzy. My mother had a return policy of at least three returns over a period of a year at the stores she frequented. By the time the third return came along, dad had lost track of the original investment and any and all subsequent hikes. Today I find this return policy gene invaluable in architecting spending plans in my marriage. Our Amex bill has so many credits and so many debits that the engineer of the house has stopped doing the math. And what he cannot differentiate is becoming integral to our marital bliss.
- Applying the Goodwill (or The Mystery of Slo-w-l-y Vanishing Objects) technique
If there’s something you don’t like in the house that has overstayed its welcome (and it belongs to your partner), you may dispose of it without incurring the wrath of the said person. But you must first learn the art of phasing things out. Have a closet phase first: hide giveaways in a closet for a month. Then, in the next week, relegate it to the garage. Then enter phase three: store object(s) in the trunk of a car or van. Finally, you may gently, absently almost, tow it to the Goodwill truck. But be forewarned, the object will be needed one day. Trust me, every object you dispose of will be asked for one day. But when the time comes, adorn the mask of disingenuousness: “Let’s see…where did it go? I saw it just the other day…
- Proactive Quality Assurance using vanilla cream candles
Good food alone doesn’t cut it, anymore. You’ve got to reinvent using proven psychological tricks. It’s about ambiance, smell, color. The latest research in the journal Science says colors affect your mood. Smells matter too. " We tend to be happier and perhaps even more optimistic in an environment with a pleasing odor," says Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Ltd., in Chicago. I know a saint of a husband who turned snarky one day. “I know you like antiques, honey. But when will you stop serving me antique food?” My husband rarely says it even when I serve him leftovers because I consistently dress up my food, my table and my kitchen to redress the titanic careening of my love boat. There's a reason that a vanilla cream scent wafts through our home day after day.
If there are any spouses out there who would like to share other tried and tested engineering tips, please write. I hope your words will be on the money and that you may save someone some alimony.
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