Huh? What?

            I think I’m addressing a gender specific issue today, but I’m not sure.  My wife, Lana says I tune her out.  She says I REALLY tune her out.  I call it focusing.  She calls it ignoring her.  I think that is harsh.  That would mean I don’t care.  I do care.  I just don’t hear.  I don’t hear her because I’m focused on something else, like a book, or the computer for writing purposes, or the television.

            I like to think of it as a gift.  Apparently when I am sitting there focused, she must be trying to talk to me.  Personally, I think she is making this up.  Yep.  It’s a conspiracy to make me look bad.  “Oh, my husband won’t talk to me.  All he does is sit and watch television or write on his computer and when I talk to him, he doesn’t even hear me.  A bomb could go off and he wouldn’t hear it.”  Yep, a conspiracy. 

Sometimes I glance over to her chair to see her mouth moving.  I know there are words coming out.  Probably important ones too.  I don’t know if it is just me or all men, but I think I was born with a special flap in my ears, sort of like a barrier, a wall if you will.  When I reach a certain level of concentration, this flap slams shut in my ears, and ta da, my concentration is complete.  What can I tell you?  I have a gift.  She doesn’t think so, but it is for sure a gift.

A couple weeks ago, we had a couple friends of ours here from Arizona for a few days.  They date back to my college days.  I got sucked into the national news one evening and they were talking to Lana and sucking down some wine.  The next thing I knew, three voices were yelling at me from across the room.

“Is this what you were talking about?”

“Yes,” Lana says, “You can hit him with a board before he comes out of it.”

“Amazing.  Steve doesn’t do that at all.”

I felt like an animal behind the wall at the zoo.  “Alright, cut it out.  The show is over.  And you two are lying.  I bet Steve does have this incredible ability.”

They shook their heads.  It must be the intense heat of the Arizona sun.  It affected his focus.  Shame.  He used to be better.  Maybe I could start up a school for wayward husbands who have lost their mental focus.  KRULIK’S 5 DAYS TO A BETTER YOU.  Learn how to completely shut others out in your life in an evening or anytime you choose, 5 minutes or 5 hours.

Yeah, maybe not.  I’m in enough trouble as it is in my own living room with my focus ability.  I do think I am going to make up a sign and have it with me in my chair.  When I am reading or writing or getting into something on television, I will raise that sign on a stick for her to see.  It will simply say, I’M FOCUSING, BE WITH YOU SOON.