*(A.K.A. How Not to Spouse)

12/22/17: I pride myself on my gift guides. I spend all year gathering the items therein, I carefully curate the lists,  and I firmly stand behind every hand-picked item in them. Today’s post is not one of those. If anything, this is an anti-gift guide.

In postwar America, the majority of women spent their days cooking and cleaning and making themselves appealing to their husbands. And what do you think the advertising world thought these hard-working women deserved, nay, desired for Christmas? Art? Theater tickets? Music? Jewelry? Or, heaven fore-fend, books? Nope. They convinced these idiotic husbands that what their wives wanted vacuums, electric mixers, girdles. GIRDLES. Seriously.

So gentlemen (and others) who are buying a gift – Christmas or otherwise – for your lady, please take the hint. No vacuums. No mixers. And absolutely no damned girdles.