By Charles Marshall
Guest Columnist

A friend of mine recently told me he was engaged. Since he’s never lived with a woman, I told him he’s going to need buy a few things that he hasn’t used before such as household cleaning supplies and furniture not made out of old milk crates.

After our conversation, I felt bad because I realized I had offered him no real insight into the mysteries of matrimonial union. So, in order to correct this oversight, I offer the following heretofore undisclosed observations to all young men contemplating walking the aisle.

Revelatory Marriage Fact No.1: Getting married is like getting a free memory upgrade. As a man, your hard drive was filled up long ago with important stuff like sports scores and movie trivia, but women, for some inexplicable reason, have tons of extra storage capacity that is yours for the asking.

As a married man, you may feel free to store stuff on her hard drive that think you might need later but don’t want to bother to remember yourself. “Wow, this is a great hamburger. Remind me to order this the next time we’re here.”

This is a tremendous resource that you will learn to thoroughly exploit. You will find yourself frequently asking her such questions as, “Honey, what’s the name of that song that I like?” or “What’re the names of those people that we’re friends with?” or “What’s my middle name?” The possibilities are as exciting as they are endless.

Wives are also frightfully good at remembering superfluous information like the names of your children and the dates of their births. All you will need to do is show up for your kid’s birthday party and act like you know what’s in the present he’s opening.

Revelatory Marriage Fact No. 2: When you get married, you will develop non-communication skills. God made women so they use about three times the number of words as a man in one day.

How is a guy supposed to interact with such a creature? In short, you’re not. Even attempting such a thing could almost instantaneously institutionalize you, or worse, turn you into a girl. Instead, you must develop the skill of tuning out your wife by converting the sound of her voice into white noise that you can easily ignore.

There is no way to instruct a young groom-to-be in this valuable art, but don’t worry, it will just happen. It’s a wondrous, mystical thing like falling in love, discovering a new kind of power tool, or getting a bite on your hook. You must relax and let it come to you. Rest assured, though, that one day you will be able to ignore your wife with the best of us.

When ignoring your wife, it is important to remember to evade detection by maintaining a semblance of conversation. Don’t try anything fancy at first or you’ll get busted for sure. Just a simple “hmm?” or “uh-huh” muttered occasionally will suffice. After a while you can graduate to “you don’t say” and “how about that.”

If she ever asks you, “What you mean by that?” know that you ventured too far and have officially blown your cover. You might as well start learning to “share your feelings” and “have conversations.” Shudder.

I recently read about a guy in Des Moines who started cutting coupons and getting manicures as a direct result of having conversations with his wife.

True story!

So, good luck all of you guys venturing forth info matrimonial waters. You’re in for some interesting times. Oh, and you might also want to purchase a clothes hamper. I think you will find you will no longer be able to use the kitchen table as a dirty clothes receptacle when you’re married.

Charles Marshall is a nationally known Christian comedian and author. Visit his Web site at www.charlesmarshallcomedy.com or contact him via e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .