from the Bob Rybarczyk column in the St Louis Post Dispatch 2/12/2008 edition...

We normal guys hate that our wives dig the bad boys

By Bob Rybarczyk

SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH

02/12/2008

So the other day Colette and I, along with our friends Jeff and Sherry, went to see a blues guitarist play. It was a good time. Colette and I don’t often get the chance to see live music, and this guy was really good.

After watching this dude crank out a few seriously tasty blues-guitar licks, something occurred to me. I leaned over to Colette and said, “This is totally the kind of guy you would have been hot for back in your single days, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, with the kind of grin she typically reserves for jewelry shopping.

Sherry saw the grin and asked what we were talking about. “I was telling Bob that if I were single, that this guy would totally be my type,” she said.

“Oh yeah, totally,” Sherry said. “Without a doubt.”

After that, Colette leaned over to Sherry and said a few more things that I couldn’t hear. When I asked her about it later, I learned that the rest of their conversation was really only appropriate for a darkened pub, after a few drinks, and at least 500 yards away from the nearest church.

I didn’t get it. I did, but I didn’t. The guitarist didn’t exactly have an athletic build. In fact, though it was a little hard to tell, I was fairly sure that he had a little more cushion around his waistline than I did. He wasn’t a slob, but his shirt and jeans both had seen better days.

What he did have in his favor was a full head of rock-star hair. When he sang, it hung over his face. Every once in a while, he’d flip it back over his shoulder, often right before tearing into some wicked solo. I have to imagine that every time he did one of those flips, at least half the women in the room felt a twinge in their ovaries. He also had a goatee. And if all that weren’t enough, he was a musician. A good one, at that.

In a way, I still didn’t get it. I had long hair in high school. I’ve grown goatees at times. Heck, I even used to play guitar. And yet, in my youth I couldn’t attract girls to save my life. I could have stapled posters of Jon Bon Jovi all over my body and still not gotten a girl to notice, even if it were to just long enough for her to grab her can of mace and dial 911.

I mentioned all of this to Colette the next day. “I’ve seen pictures of you in high school when you had long hair,” she said. “But you had bad long hair. Look at Sebastian Bach in his prime, or Jon Bon Jovi. They had flowing, beautiful hair. You had a mullet.”

Ouch. Well, OK, she’s right. I did have a mullet. Point taken.

“And you didn’t look good with that goatee you had for a while,” Colette continued, though I didn’t recall asking her to. “You can’t pull off facial hair. You really can’t pull off long hair, either. Even if you grew your hair out, it wouldn’t look right. It’s just not you.” Then she gave me a shrug, like she just told me that she’d forgotten to buy more toilet paper at the store.

Well…geez.

The more I thought about it, the more bummed I got. My wife loved the bad boys back in the day, the guys with long hair and tasty guitar licks and leather pants. I wear my hair short. All I can remember how to play on the guitar are maybe four different chords and the opening riff to “Crazy Train.” If I came home wearing a pair of leather pants, Colette would probably laugh so hard she’d pop her neck out of place.

I felt disgruntlement settling in. I realize I’m no mid-1980s J. Sebastian Bach, but I’m not chopped liver. I can bench press up to 95 pounds.. I can touch the ceiling of my living room without getting on my tippy-toes. I have almost no back hair. I…I…

…I’m hosed. I’m a short-haired, clean-shaven, non-musician with a day job, a lawn mower and an SUV. I own ties and get excited when I realize the bar I’m entering is a non-smoking facility. I live with cats. I brush my teeth twice a day and own two different kinds of Speed Stick, which I vary depending on what color shirt I’m wearing.

In other words, I’m a big fat load of boring.

“I did marry you, you know,” Colette said, apparently having noticed the look on my face. Or maybe it was the quiet sniffle and manly tear. Whatever. “You might not look like a rock star, but I like the way you look, and you’re good to me. I consider myself lucky to have you.”

Really?

“Yes, you big dork,” she said. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to be that guitarist. All his songs are about how lonely and miserable he is.”

Really? Oh.

Well, in that case…take that, Mr. Blues Guitar Dude. In your face, pal! I am the champion, my friend, and I’ll keep on fighting, ‘til the end. Ha!

Um, seriously though, dude, do me a favor and please don’t ever ever come to my house. At least not unless you get a haircut first.

Bob Rybarczyk (brybarczyk@sbcglobal.net) writes stuff. He can bend his thumb at a 90-degree angle. Check out the profile of him in the February issue of St. Louis Magazine, and don’t forget to buy his first novel, “Acoustic Kitty,” ($15.95) at Amazon.