Mars vs Venus? Try beef jerky vs. foccacia...

So, I've been married for 8 years. Had a couple (ok, probably too many) "serious" boyfriends before that. I wouldn't presume to say that I'm any kind of "expert" on men. Who can figure them out? It's like figuring out how to program a cell phone when the 100 page manual was written in English by someone who speaks only Taiwanese. Yeesh. I'm also no pro on the finer points of navigating a relationship. I mostly flounder about and hope I don't get mashed by any icebergs. However, I've come to realize some rather interesting differences between my fair sex and the taller, generally smellier one.

The Games We Play and Refreshments Provided:

I play Bunco. For the uninitiated: it's a dice game, played by a group of people, who are usually women from what I can determine, divisible by the number 4. It is played in groups of 4, rolling 3 dice and counting. . (For more on the exciting rules and procedures for Bunco, Google it. I don't have time to figure out a link for you...). We meet once a month, precisely on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, rotating houses so each girl has a turn hosting. Hosting mostly involves trying to find enough tables and chairs and madly cleaning your house all day.. At the beginning of each year of play, the group leader has a list for food and refreshment sign-up, so we each have to put our names down to bring food and/or a non-alcholic beverage to share at least one month out of the year. (She also has a spread sheet with our names, emails and phone numbers and what month we're hosting. She's so organized. Bitch.) The rest of us just bring whatever alcoholic beverage we want to get tipsy on. This is usually wine, either a merlot or a finer non-fruity white. Except for me; I show up with a Riesling or a hard lemonade sometimes. I'm no snob. If we can't make it one month, we call the hostess at least a week in advance, who has a list of potential substitute players whom she starts calling.

Whomever has the honor of being the one to bring an appetizer for all of us to snack on usually goes all out, spending most of a day on it. We've had home-grown tomato slices marinated in the finest olive oil and fresh basil, served with fresh mozzarella slices. Someone brought homemade egg rolls and pot stickers with 2 different homemade dipping sauces. On my turn I made, from scratch, foccacia bread and baked a homemade artichoke and parmesan cheese spread for it. Mmmm. Now I'm hungry. .

During the game, there is occasional squealing and sloshing wine all over if a bunco is rolled. We nibble on dainty snacks like shell-shaped chocolates or wasabi almonds and cheer for one another ( OH, yay! Look at you! You rolled two threes! You go Girl!). There are cute little signs on each table (you rotate tables if you win or lose, and it's different for each one) like: "Winners stay; losers stray". We play until about 9 or 10 pm, then hand out the money and cute-as-heck prizes to the winners and losers, then hug everyone and head home to our hubbies, who have hopefully been able to wrangle the kids to bed all by themselves.

Contrast that with my husband's poker game. Every few weeks or months, someone in the office says "hey, we haven't played for a while." Then someone volunteers their house for the next Saturday, usually without first consulting with his wife. They then start emailing the other "cool" guys in the office, trying not to let the "uncool" ones know. Sometimes there are 7 or 8 who say yes, sometimes only 4, which is apparently the minimum, but hey, they can fake it if they want to. Most of the time, most of them show up. Those that don't show occasionally call at the last minute. Or not. Whatever.

Food? Oh, yeah. Usually, the wives separately remind each of them that it's a nice thing to bring a little something with you when you are invited to someone's house. My husband, this past Saturday, took a giant bag of beef jerky. Which I bought for him at Costco when he called me from the office on Friday afternoon. Most of the others can sometimes scrounge up a bag of chips and some beer. One guy brings a bag of Swedish Fish every time. My husband told me that last time, one of the other guys brought a sleeve of saltines. Wow. (Just a note: they used to let the wives play, and we brought good food. But, I kept winning and am no longer welcome. It's boys-only now. Wussies.)

They then proceed to spend the rest of the night in someone's basement or garage, huddled around a hexagonal (I think? I've never counted the sides) table and smoking really stinky cigars and laughing way too loud and calling each other names like "pussy" and "mama's boy" and sending out challenges like "you ain't got a hair on your ass if you don't bet now..". Keep in mind, these are all men who work for one of the most powerful financial firms in the world and most of them have master's degrees in business and finance. But, put them in front of a stack of cards and their couth leaks out of every orifice.

Around midnight or one or two am, they start to think about stumbling home. Hopefully there has only been one fistfight and a couple of "yo momma/wife is so ugly" threats, and then they collect however much they've won or lost and they all leave as friends.

So, there you have it. I think I've finally cracked the biggest riddle of human history: Why are men and women so different? It's not planets; it's the way we play in groups...