There are three things that signal to a husband he’s in big trouble:

1. A call from his wife telling him her car he was supposed to take to the service station is out of gas;
2. taking her expensive, brand new, do-not-tumble-dry blouse out of the dryer where he put it and discovering it’s three sizes smaller; and
3. arriving home from work and finding delicious food set out all around the house.

Me: “Oh wow! Look at all this. Candy, hors d'oeuvres, those little meat and cheese things I love, crackers, gourmet chips, dip.”

Wife: “Don’t touch anything. It’s for company.”

When a man comes home and finds tons of delicious food everywhere that he can’t touch, it can only mean one thing.

His wife’s all women book club is coming over for the evening.

There are some absolute truths in this world and one of them is that men will make themselves scarce if there are more than three women together in a house. No one is really sure where they go. But they will disappear until the odds improve.

Me: “What am I supposed to do when a whole book club of women comes over?”

Wife: “I don’t know. Why don’t you do something crazy like join us.”

Me: “Maybe I can get a hotel room for the night?”

Wife: “What is it with men. Every home we go to the husband disappears. Why are you so afraid of women?”

We’re not afraid of a woman. We’re afraid of a group of women. Frankly a man has a hard enough time with one women. If there are 10 or 15 of them all at once, he knows he doesn’t stand a chance.

I looked this phenomena up on the one true source of all accurate information: the Internet. I found a pretty good explanation.

It turns out women’s book groups are why architects invented basements. For husbands.

Why do men disappear when a group of women come over? There’s no reason why we should. It’s ridiculous. We’re men. We’re strong. We’re brave. We’re intelligent. We can face being outnumbered.

There’s no reason to hide! And I’m going to go tell other men what I’ve learned.

I’ll do it just as soon as all the women leave our house so I can come up out of the basement.

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