You may find this hard to believe, but I have come across another trend that makes me rub my eyes with my thumb and index finger while letting out a deep “serenity now” sigh.

I can’t really say for sure if it’s a growing trend or if my obliviousness is just Mark
Goresslowly dying off, but my wife seems to be attending a lot more “women buying things at someone’s house” parties these days. If you have one of those food mashers that you pound the handle up and down with the expectation that it will produce an evenly chopped mirepoix in a fraction of the time only to find it just bludgeons your food and eventually gets placed in the back of your cupboard next to the all-too-important and underutilized mango corer, then your life has been affected by these so-called “hostess parties” in one way or another, too.

In the past two months, my wife has gone shopping for jewelry, fake purses, makeup, kitchen gimmicks … err… gadgets, clothes and various home accessories.

 Sounds like a nice little Saturday at the mall, Honey. Take your time; I’ll be watching the Twins. Oh …  I mean it sounds like a nice six Saturdays at different people’s homes buying crap we don’t need while drinking wine and telling your friends about all the annoying things I do, like not using the hamper.

In my defense, it’s much easier to find clothes suitable for re-wearing if they’re just scattered on the floor instead of balled up in a hamper co-mingling with the dirties.

The last party my wife went to resulted eventually in a new clock for our mantle. I say eventually because the following conversation took place and I learned a lot about these parties:

“So how was it?”

“Good. I broke even,” she replied.

At first this seems like a sarcastic reference to my generic response to the outcome of every poker party I have ever attended or maybe even that she was able to leave the party without feeling obligated to buy some stuff we don’t need, but when Emily says “broke even,” that means she paid some money and they gave her durable goods in return.

“OK, let’s see it. What’d you buy?”

“Well I got a clock, a blah, and a blah and ooh this really cute blah-biddy-blah blah.”

“Great … you need help carrying it in?”

“No, it should all be here in six or eight weeks.”

“Oh that sucks, they ran out huh? How big is the clock?  Is it heavy?”

“I’m not sure, they didn’t have it there. It was in the catalog.”

Oh, the catalog! That’s right! All this time I was thinking you were actually looking at things to buy, but as it turns out this production that has been on the calendar for weeks that you really wanted to go to so you could support your friend putting on the party was nothing more than women trying to get out of the house without feeling guilty like they try to make men feel on a guy’s night out.

Oh, and there might be a catalog on the coffee table. By the way, next week I have to go to Brian’s Menards party. Yeah, we’re getting a case of Hamm’s and a pizza and flipping through his latest Menard’s catalog. He’s really putting a lot of effort into it, and I want to make sure I’m there for him.

See how silly it sounds?

I guess this is just the latest example of men not understanding women. And while men may not ever know or want to know exactly what happens at your little catalog parties, or what their purpose is, it’s a fair trade-off for believing me when I say I broke even.

 Mark Gores, a 27-year-old realtor, lives in Prior Lake with his wife, Emily. To comment on this column, call the editor at (952) 345-6378 or e-mail markgores@yahoo.com or editor@plamerican.com.