I sometimes meet guys who like to complain about their wives. I assume that they like to because it seems like it’s all they ever do. And it’s different from Divorced Guy syndrome, because in those cases there is an understandable reason for the bitching.

No, I’m talking about the class of married men who never say a single good word about their wives. Wives who are deficient in every possible way: stupid, lazy, free-loading, etc. At least if one listens to their husbands.

They talk and complain, and bitch, and in general are kind of a pain in the ass to be around, because their conversational turns are as predictable as a NASCAR track. “Hey, did you see that throw Ichiro made yesterday?”

“No. I told my wife to tape Sportscenter, but she didn’t. SHE IS A HORRIBLE CUNT.”

“Uh, you know, you could probably catch it on YouTube, or it might get played again later today on like ESPN News or something.”

“SHE CUNT AND ME HATE! RAH!”

And there it ends.

Because the universe is an ever recurring leitmotif of ‘STUPID CUNT’. All other melodies are relegated to playing counterpoint to that basic point. And I can’t understand why they think this way. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the level of negativity and pettiness that’s necessary to look at the world that way. Thank the Lord.

Whenever I meet guys like this, and if there is no way for me to get out of the conversation, I always tell them that’s why I’m happy to be single.

But what I really mean is I’m happy I’m not a misogynistic douche bag.

One day when I was sixteen, I came home from school and found my father in a tremendously good mood.

“Guess what!” he said. “I traded the Husqvarna!” This was a motorcycle he’d fixed up. It was a special model that was designed for riding up steep grades. Very low-geared.

“What did you trade it for?”

“A cow!”

If he had said, “Magic beans!” I would have been less annoyed. As it was, I found myself uncharacteristically angry. A cow. A cow? A rage more intense and focused than my normal hormonal teenage brooding welled up inside of me. I now know what this feeling is: The feeling you have when your sense of reason is horribly violated. I felt the need to make my position on this development clear.

“I am not going to take care of a fucking cow.”

“What? No. I traded it to Jerry for some beef.” My father was so confused that he didn’t even comment on the fact I’d just dropped the f-bomb. Jerry was a friend of my father’s who owned a ranch down near the Coumbia River. He’d traded the motorcycle for the meat of a whole cow.

But what you have to understand is this: The idea that my father might buy a cow made perfect sense to me because thats the sort of thing my father might do. “I’m tired of paying for fucking milk! It’s bullshit! I’m gonna just get my own damn cow!”

I could try to go through the whole album (Etiquette), and tell you why this laid back, morose serving of melancholy deserves to be listened to (over and over again), but I’ll just pick the song that gets me the most: ‘Cold White Christmas’.

The song is about a young woman, 22 years old, living in Saint Paul. Which is kind of weird, because I was about 22 when I moved to the Twin Cities. While I hadn’t just graduated from college, I had decided to strike out on my own.

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