(A non-comprehensive list)
1) Definitely do not consult your spouse about big purchases, like cars. That ruins the magic. If you go out and purchase a new vehicle from a luxury car dealer, your spouse will clutch you tearily and murmur “Thank you,” as long as you put a big bow on it. Don’t forget the bow. The bow is key. The bow is the difference between “I made a major household purchase and did not tell you about it! I hope you didn’t need a four-door!” and “I JUST BOWLED YOU OVER WITH MY THOUGHTFULNESS AND AFFECTION LIKE SOME KIND OF BLEEPING THOUGHTFULNESS MONSTER.” (Then again, given the looks of most of the houses in these commercials, these people can buy cars the way the rest of us buy boxes of Cheez-Its.)
2) Men have no idea what the women in their life want or what their actual preferences are, which is weird and terrifying when you consider that most of these commercial characters are married. “I would want a sports jersey!” these men think to themselves. “But she — she is a woman. She must want a sports jersey that is different somehow, maybe with shiny items glued to it! I will bedazzle one for her!” Their male friends shake their heads sadly. They, too, have no idea what to get their women, but they were wise enough to purchase them shiny items from the TV. This is the course they recommend. The one rule is that you cannot talk to your Woman and ask her what she actually would like. Your only options are a Weird Bedazzled Sports Jersey or Chocolate Diamond From Jared. That’s it. DO NOT SPEAK TO HER.
3) The same rule goes for him. You should probably get him a — big tool with a motor on it? Yeah. AGAIN, DO NOT SPEAK TO HIM.
4) Chocolate is not something you eat piles of because you are sitting next to a bowl full of it. It is something you consume in carefully wrapped squares to give yourself a “moment just for you.” Actual people do this.
5) TGI Friday’s is a place you go on purpose, by choice, to make memories.
6) Doing this makes a sound!
7) The fact that your mother-in-law has snuck your infant out of his crib before anyone else wakes up and is dangling him next to the Christmas tree whispering anecdotes into his ear about His Father In His Youth is cause for celebration, not alarm. As is the fact that she prepared Folger’s coffee for the whole house.
8) M&M’s DO EXIST!
9) Don’t go to a party hosted by an anthropomorphic peanut.