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Role Reversal Registers With Bride and Groom
by Steve Goodwin, reprinted with permission
A funny thing is happening on the way to the altar.
My bride-to-be and I have recently completed (we think) the fascinating process of registering for wedding gifts. The idea is simple: select the silverware (also called "flatware"), plates and dishes ("china, everyday"), china ("china, formal") and other food-and-drink stuff you'd like to receive as gifts from those attending or celebrating your wedding.
The effect is incredible: it's like an upscale, fantasy combination of the 60's TV game shows Sale of the Century (starring Joe Garagiola) and Supermarket Sweepstakes, in which contestants got one minute to fill a shopping cart with as many items as possible. We ensure a similar harried scenario by arriving at stores 15 minutes prior to their closing. We walk around with a list, hurriedly checking off items as nervous managers eye the clock and the door.
Above all, it is a process that demands a high level of cooperation and communication between future wives and husbands. Which makes registering for gifts looks like a prime Okay Corral for the showdown between stereotypical gender roles.
Roving for hours without guidance in a large department store. Could there be a worse hell-on-earth for the stereotypical male? Conversely, what could provide more rapture for the stereotypical female than the notion of an all-expenses-paid shopping spree, conducted during a number of leisurely romps through Williams&BarrelBarnDale's?
This stale script went right out the window when it came to Susan and me.
We're in the home-stretch of an incredible role reversal that has me dismissing china (everyday) patterns as "too seasonal" and Susan wondering (guy-like) what difference it all makes and how a man could possibly care so much about grape shears.
The tired old caricature of a woman dragging a man around a department store—his eyes downcast, his steps a reluctant shuffle to the gallows—has been replaced with this scene: Susan, sitting on the floor against a wall in Bloomingdale's, totally out of gas after an hour on the losing end of a debate over silver candlesticks. Me, fueled by repeated stops for samples at the Mrs. Field's Cookie demonstration, grabbing Susan by the arm and dragging her off to look at $100 orange juicers and fancy tea presses.
I have never used a tea press in my life.
I'm so into it. Not that Susan isn't: she's terrific and has been the voice of reason throughout the entire affair (although she lost her cool and nearly stormed out of Macy's after I wondered aloud how we could possibly choose a formal china pattern without first seeing the gravy boat and creamer).
Poor girl. She had no idea I'd make such a study of the whole thing. It's what I do.
Sure, Calphalon cookware is great, but have you seen All-Clad? They're both mighty impressive when you've been cooking everything in the pot your mom gave you when you moved out of the house in 1982. Alas, there can be only one winner in this game.
It's like the Pentagon choosing between a bomb that could destroy the world three times over and one that could destroy the world five times over. You want to be on the safe side, so you choose the bigger bomb.
Although I'd never heard of either brand before we got engaged, I climb atop a display table at Bloomingdale's and deliver a lengthy, passionate oratory on the need for quality, non-stick cookware that would have made the people from All-Clad and Calphalon cry. When the applause finally dies down, we decide to go with the mega-power of All-Clad. All-Clad LTD, thank you very much!
At Thanksgiving, I listen with horror as Susan's iron-pumping sister complains about the weight of her new All-Clad pots and pans. Too heavy for a twice-a-day workout queen!?!
I flash forward to Susan and me sitting in our doctors' offices, diagnosed with "All-Clad elbow." I knew it was too good to be true. Where's Susan? We're heading back to Bloomies!
Copyright ©2001
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