Men and women communicate differently. We all know that. Not to overgeneralize (but I’m going to anyway) men tend to ask direct questions based on what we want or need at a specific moment. Women tend to ask questions which seem to be needing honest answers but actually have subtext which, if you are paying attention, you can pick up and realize that it wasn’t actually a question that was being asked in the first place but a request politely phrased.

As an example, let’s use what just happened here a few moments ago. My wife works part-time in retail which means that after she gets home, her feet are killing her. So, I give her foot rubs on those nights. As I started rubbing her feet she asked me, “Do you want to use lotion?” and I answered without thinking, “No, I’d rather not get my hands slimey.” As the words left my mouth I saw that look of immediate disappointment cross her face and realized that I just gave the wrong answer.

And then it struck me. My wife just proved God’s existence.

I’ll explain.

I have often railed at the seeming strangeness of the supposed grand plan. The idea that if you do not subscribe to a particular sect of a particular religion (and woe unto you if you choose the wrong one) then you are doomed forever. The idea that Jesus (or whoever) is sitting in Heaven (or wherever) checking a clipboard and seeing if you filled out every form correctly like some divine DMV seemed absurd to me. I always subscribed to the idea that if you do right by your fellow man, followed the Golden Rule, and were generally fair, kind, and truthful, it didn’t matter at all what you actually believed. It’s a spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law situation. So, the idea that God created people with free will and then got upset if they exercised their free will in a way that displeased God made no sense to me. Why not just create people to always be good and follow a specific path? Why give free will if you’re just setting us up to fail?

And tonight my wife proved God exists. She did exactly the same thing. She could have said, “Please use lotion,” and that would have been all that was needed. I would have said, “Sure thing,” and used lotion. But she asked if I wanted to use lotion which is an entirely different question. She gave me free will and then was upset when I exercised it in the wrong direction.

Now religion makes sense to me. And God is, of course, a woman. And now I know I am truly doomed.