[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you’re a boy, and you’re thinking of marrying a Southern woman like I did, you’d do well to understand how she thinks first.

Take for instance, my wife, Jamie. I’ve spent years in training beneath her tutelage. I’ve learned a few things. Not a lot, but a little.

And I’d like to share some tips to help you on your journey, my friend.

1: Even though your Southern wife appreciates you trying, you are much too simpleminded to wash dishes. In fact, you couldn’t even make ice without a recipe. Loading residential dishwashers is only to be done by card-carrying members of the Junior League — or their mothers.

2: Do your wife a favor and familiarize yourself with the federal laws of Southern female fashion. They aren’t difficult to remember. Here’s one: females shall not wear white between Labor Day and the SEC Championship. Unless it’s a leap year. In which case, women are not allowed to wear chevron-print, flip flops, corduroy, or expose tattoos to members of the Rotary Club on Tuesdays.

3: Grocery lists can be fun. Lists written by your Southern wife will contain cryptic shorthand only intelligible to certain members of Navajo tribes. Furthermore, you’re a terrible supermarket shopper. All that cheap toilet paper you bought? Your wife could sand a boat with that stuff.

4: At night, it is permitted for a Southern woman’s bedside lamp to remain on while she catches up on Russian Literature. Yes, it might seem as though you’re falling asleep with aircraft lights aimed at your wispy thin eyelids. You can always try cussing.

5: Remember the good old days? When you used to tell stories to buddies, and they’d die with laughter? That’s over now. A Southern debutante like your wife has legal authority to question your bull-hockey in public. Once she shuts you down, she will then prove that you don’t even know how to spell debutante.

6: You used to pick out your own clothes. Nowadays, you couldn’t dress a scarecrow worth a cuss.

7: Always remember that your honey-do list will be written on your tombstone and in your obituary. Your mother-in-law already knows this list backward and forward. So do members of your local Junior League chapter.

8: When out for dinner, it is grounds for divorce to order a salad if your Dixie Belle orders steak, pork, or chitlins. She will think you are making a passive aggressive statement and confront you with, “Salad? Are you trying to say I’m a fat-ass?” Similarly, never, under any circumstances, go to the gym together.

9: If you should ever eat peanut butter with a spoon, please see rule number 1.

10: When your Southern wife asks, “Do I look fat?” any response (including involuntary twitches of your trick eyelid) will be your last. Try this: tuck a five-dollar bill into her waistband, then tell her to walk slowly around the room while you holler and whistle like a fool.

However, if your wife is like mine, she won’t even bat an eyelash for anything less than a fifty.