What's the most useless thing on Grandma?

An interesting piece in a newspaper had me exclaiming, Yes! The article in The Times - in the free online bit - followed some remarks by a high school head, a lady headmaster, or headmistress as the paper dares to term her in this crazy time of equality.

The head of a school for girls in the metropolis had this advice for her charges: In adulthood, don't infantalise your husband when you acquire one.

Ms Victoria Bingham refers to wives whose prompts, or orders, are offered in regular To-do lists. Don't, she declares, micro-manage your man.

It seems the wise lady refers to wives and picked-on husbands in younger years.

Orders are commands

We can only guess who gives the orders in a household of a young couple.

Not so at the older, pensioner stage, I'd say, where the orders are much more prevalent, and often issued - commanded - out in public. It's this senior lady bossiness that inspired my exclamation.

In later years, a more insistent version of micro-management takes over and is no longer confined to the kitchen or living room. It's out there in the high street, the NHS carpark, and in my overpopulated suburb, everywhere.

I don't doubt that the assertiveness springs from a well-meaning girl who almost suddenly has a household and little family to manage. Obviously, she needs help, and not all husbands are natural helpers at home.

The view at the supermarket

Look around your supermarket and you'll see the outcome of this earlier bossiness. The now retired fellow, usually portly because the wife wants to show publicly that she feeds him well, is instructed to get the vinegar.

He wonders, er, um, where will it be? With a loud admonishment or two, she dashes off to the shelf. Now he's to get the bread. Seeded, sliced, supersize or small? She defines the demand noisily as she hurries off herself to the bread counter.

As I contemplate a late marriage, I wonder if I want to be in their shoes - sneakers, it seems, to avoid unending nagging for applications of polish.

And it's the look of the poor devils. They're overweight, harassed - henpecked, used to be the term - and unfit. This physical state comes from a gramps' determination to win somewhere. The story continues on the home for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory.com