What Makes a Hero more than a Sandwich?

There is nothing better than a hero in a romance novel. The guy is always smokin' hot. He's never leaving the toilet seat up, kicking off his shoes at the front door, using your kitchen knives to work on the car or asking you to sniff the noxious results of his bodily functions. 

Heroes in romance novels always say and do the right thing. They're perfectly dressed, and if they aren't it's sexy anyway. Every other woman on the planet wants to be you as you sashay around town on his arm while he looks at no other boobs but yours. And whenever you need him he miraculously appears with a bottomless supply of strength and patience topped off with what must be either stellar credit or a serious trust fund. 

So why can't real guys be like the heroes we novelists are always creating? 

Because real guys don't follow a script. They don't do what you want or say what you want because they have brains all their own that don't seem to function in any semblance of sense. They talk when they should be silent and then clam up when you want to talk. Their personal habits rival those of some zoo animals and sometimes the diet of hamburgers and taco salads results in an increase in pants size. 

In fact, some marriage counselors believe that romance novels are doing damage to women's sense of reality. They claim that women are unable to accept the the shortcomings of real life men because they constantly feed their brains images of perfect heroes doing heroic deeds and never screwing up when they separate the laundry or fold the towels. 

I think women deserve a little more credit than that. 

We aren't deluded. We know our guys will never be hot vampires or sexy werewolves. We know they aren't cowboys or time traveling knights and lords. Most of the time they don't even qualify as the cute guy next door type. And really, most of us probably don't even wish that they were. 

Why not? 

Because they are our guys starring in our stories. And since life is really just what you make of it, why not pull out your favorite hot romance novel and read a few of the spicier excerpts to your guy and see if he doesn't put down the sandwich and become a hero.

To Pube or Not to Pube...

How many of us have significant others, whether they be spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, fiances, whatever, who do things that leave us with our mouths hanging wide open in horrified shock? I'll go out on a limb here and say everyone. It's a fact of life. In fact you cannot share your life with another human being and not find yourself in that dumbfounded state at least once while you watch your beloved do something that leaves you without words.

I'm not talking about drinking out of the milk container or forgetting to flush the toilet. I'm not even talking about putting a red stocking in with your tightie whities or putting your delicates in the washer on permanent press. 

No, I'm talking about the disgusting stuff. Those vile personal habits that ensure a gross out of epic proportions. The ones that really violate the boundary between amusing and "Ewww!"

Which brings me back around to my significant other's recent transgression. My dear, loving husband of thirteen years who still acts like a high school boy bent on grossing out his latest crush. And succeeding. 

Three days ago as I'm blow drying my hair after a shower, he asks me how his hair looks. Now, it's been ten years or more since that man has had enough hair on his head to even consider the need for styling. But I wasn't thinking about that when I turned around to find him running my hair brush through the hair growing in the general vicinity of his groin.

Unlike some people, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I have a few hangups. I'm a little bit on the OCD side though I don't think I'd go so far as to claim a Type A personality. For the most part I'm fairly easy to get along with. I don't like clutter, (who really does?) I constantly redecorate, re-accessorize, and rearrange my space, and I have a serious vendetta against germs.

Now I'm not a germaphobe. I'm really not. I do not carry a hip holster full of antibacterial gel. I don't wash my hands after every possible bit of contact with the outside world. And I certainly don't wear a mask. I'm a chronic horse lover! There are tons of germs in a barn and there is most certainly more than 'just dirt' on my boots at the end of the day.

But barn germs aren't people germs. Most especially they aren't the type of personal hygiene germs that drive me insane. Which brings me back to the violation of my hairbrush.

I was outraged. What woman would not have been outraged? The man was using my hairbrush to comb his pubes. And I don't know. Maybe I overreacted when I threw the offended hairbrush in the garbage amid a whole page worth of angry dialog aimed in his direction. But I didn't want to imagine brushing my hair and tangling his short curlies in with my long straighties. There is just something so wrong about that visual picture. 

The bottom line is that he has now officially declared my reaction to be an overreaction. And considering some of my personal hangups, maybe it was. So help me out here. Tell me if you think I was overreacting. Is there any coming back from a hairbrush that was once used on pubes? And whether or not you think I was out of line, I'm sure you've got a tale to tell about someone who stepped over the line in your life.