It's Got To Be Perfect

Kermit memorably said it wasn’t easy being green. But, as Miss Piggy must have told him with a wag of her trotter, it’s even harder being perfect.

After all Elpheba, the tinted witch in the musical Wicked, finds it easy being green every night on stage, twice on Wednesdays and again on Saturdays. The boss of British Home Stores has no problem being green, he's quite happy being Philip Green, and I myself find it easy being green when I smell kippers. In fact I’m feeling quite queasy just thinking about it right now.

But being perfect? Well, it seems there are very few of us who can carry that off.

You see being perfect is made more difficult, in my experience, by living with someone who has lots of strange habits and who doesn’t quite see you in the light that you see yourself. Debbie, my wife, thinks I’m both green and perfect only in the sense that she says I’m a perfect copy of Shrek.

Apparently my shaving bristles in the sink don’t get her excited and nor do the holes in my socks, or my perfect underwear lying on the bathroom floor, or my perfectly dreadful time keeping, my chocolate intake, my obsessive tidiness, and my lack of patience. Of course it’s perfectly clear that she’s making all that up.

She’s jealous of me being male as that means, unlike the girlies, we don't waste so much time every day on fripperies and nonsense. Guys will bump in to each other with a quick handshake and a “Hi”, or if we’re really saving time just a quick grunt and nod. Women on the other hand have to kiss, scream, and compliment each other on their hair products, jewellery and clothing. If a Martian arrived asking how to be a woman you could issue him with a template and it would go something like “Greet other women with a big kiss while saying ‘that’s a lovely bracelet/necklace/dress/coat/hairstyle. Where did you get it?’ Remember to pretend to be interested in the answer.”

We men tend to be perfect at noticing these little imperfections in you women. It’s not easy biting our tongues and holding back from pointing this out, but we do try. Sometimes we let ourselves down and emulate you like, for instance, Top Gear’s James May trying his best to look the spit of Susan Boyle at the moment, but often we try to keep our distance just so we can help point out where the fairer sex is going wrong.

My wife for some reason doesn’t take kindly to me mentioning the absurdities of being a woman and that this involves her sticking her tongue out whenever she does anything that demands the slightest concentration. Strangely, she objects to me getting upset when she calls saying she can’t remember where in the car park she’s left her car, or indeed which street the car park actually is in, or even in which town. Neither is she fond of my perfect willingness to help her save time by mentioning that visits to the hairdresser aren’t supposed to last as long as our yearly holiday, that going to Tesco isn’t meant to be a day out, that televised football really will help her live longer and that TV commercials were actually designed so that we can channel surf.

It isn’t easy being green? Well last night, after I helpfully pointed out to Debbie that the broccoli she’d made was a bit mushy, I found it very easy being green – and so did my hair, my shirt, and the kitchen walls.

Why can't women be more like men? I'd have ordered a takeaway.