AMAZING! Men Don't Know Fancy Colors

Outta Leftfield: Bedtime discussion over anchorman's tie turns colorful
Published: Wednesday, April 06, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

I'm interested to see just how fake this "bedtime conversation" with his wife will turn out to be. I'm also predicting that the talk "turns colorful" because they discuss colors.

I am more and more convinced that wives rule the world and we husbands are here just to amuse them (less so, as time goes on, I think).

Wow, here's a novel column idea - women smart, men dumb! What exactly does the "less so, as time goes on" apply to? If it implies that husbands get less amusing, he does a poor job of grammatically connecting the two thoughts.

And where they really seem to have us bamboozled is when it comes to their awareness and knowledge of colors.

... Sort of like that post where he didn't know the color of the bedroom, the couch, or the neighbor's car?

Case in point: citrine.

Show of hands, how many guys knew this was a color? And if so, what color? When I first heard it, I thought it was a 25-cent word for “latrine.”

... Sort of like that post where he is baffled by all the different kinds of candles and soaps.

From my days as a regular Crayola user — which just ended last year — I am familiar with some basic colors: black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, brown, orange. That’s about all I ever needed.

But apparently there are colors I’ve never heard of, like amethyst, fuchsia, bleu de France (a favorite of Pepe LePew and Maurice Chevalier),

Haw haw haw, foreign-sounding names are funny! He does like the Maurice Chevalier references, doesn't he?

buff (a WWE color, no doubt), caput mortuum (Grateful Dead fans will like this one), chartreuse, grullo (a Grillo pad on steroids), lapis lazuli (a backup middle infielder for the old Philadelphia Athletics, I think),

Wresting reference. Suggestion that strange name is obscure baseball player. Can we get some new "joke" material here? Please?

periwinkle (Bullwinkle’s dumber cousin), razzmatazz (the color of the Harlem Globetrotters’ basketball uniforms) and wisteria (yes, it’s a color and not a lane).

Which brings us back to citrine. The way I learned this was a color was quite by accident.

What brings us back to citrine? Wisteria? What's happening?

While I was watching the news just before retiring last Sunday evening, 6ABC anchor Rob Jennings was wearing a tie that didn’t do justice to the word “loud.” It virtually jumped off the television screen, nearly blinding me, which I don’t think was Rob’s original intent. I’m pretty sure he wants me to keep watching the newscast.

That's painful.

“Hey, check out Rob’s tie tonight,” I said innocently enough, waiting for the nightly Blonde Accountant Lotions and Potions Bathroom Tour to conclude for the evening.

“Oh, that’s citrine,” she said matter-of-factly, poking her head out of the bathroom to take a glimpse.

Another thing Borsch loves: adverbs. "I said innocently," "She said matter-of-factly"... it's like the more description he can heap on, the funnier it gets!

“Citrine? What the (bleep) is Citrine? You just made that up, didn’t you?” I said.

“No, it’s a yellow-green,” she countered.

Is that really a "counter"?

“Then why isn’t it called yellow-green?” I offered.

Is that really an "offer"? Wouldn't it make more sense to use "countered" here, since he's actually making an argument? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Michael Morsch is a really, really, really terrible writer.

It’s usually at this point in the conversation where I wish I had the Just Shut the Bleep Up Gene and that it automatically kicked in when I approached a certain level of stupidity.

As it turns out, The Blonde Accountant is very familiar with citrine, which I’m told is the hot fashion color for this season. (Personally, I’d pick Phillies red this year.)

Why? Do you like baseball or something?

I’m not sure who decides what the hot fashion color is for the season, but I do believe one of the requirements ought to be that everybody knows that citrine is not actually the secret ingredient in Listerine or some kind of disease one gets from eating too many oranges.

The more definitions we get, the more hilarious this gag becomes!

To demonstrate, The Blonde Accountant went to her closet and pulled out a sweater on a hanger.

“This is citrine,” she said, holding it up in front of her so as to assure my undivided attention.

Honestly, the sweater looked like lime green to me, which I remember from the 1970s.

Reference to a lime green outfit he used to wear incoming! I'm so sure of it.

As I have shared in this space before, I had a swell lime green leisure suit in 1977 that was the epitome of stylin’ and profilin’, such as that was in 1977. I had no idea then that I was wearing a citrine leisure suit and can only assume that had I known and shared that information with the women of that era, they would have been even more attracted to me in that suit.

Yes, you have shared it before. More times than I can count. You stink.

Of course, if a woman has a citrine sweater, she then must have citrine shoes to match, and The Blonde Accountant did indeed pull out one of the 900 or so shoeboxes in her garage/closet to reveal the citrine shoes.

Ah, you know dem women and dere huge shoe collections, eh? Eh? Ehhhh, get outta heah!

Keep in mind that this particular boudoir fashion show kicked off after the start of the 11 o’clock news. Thanks, Rob Jennings — it’s not like I wanted to go to sleep or anything before I opened my big mouth about your necktie.

I know! I'd HATE to have to talk to my wife about things.

I’d like to report that my citrine schooling concluded for the evening at the end of the impromptu fashion show, but the bedtime discussion continued with me learning that citrine goes best with Navy blue. Sure enough, Rob Jennings probably has a wife at home who knows something about colors because he did indeed have a Navy blue suit on with his citrine tie. I am soooooo glad I asked.

I like the "sure enough" just before the "did indeed." The way he says it, it's like the color of the suit was hidden from view until that very moment.

My Facebook guy friends were no help. They looked up citrine online — just like I did the next morning at work — and acted like they knew what it was, just to make me look like a horse’s patootie. As Facebook friends, they should already know that I’ve never needed any help in the department of looking like a horse’s patootie.

Everybody knows that. It's not just your Facebook friends.

From here on out, I am no longer commenting on the neckties of newscasters. I only hope that Rob Jennings doesn’t have burlywood, carnelian, ecru, gamboge or phlox ties in his collection. If he does, I’ll never get any sleep.

Wow, what a terrible thing! The conversation was literally this long:

"Look at this necktie. The color is unfamiliar to me."
"The color is called citrine."
"I do not know what that is."
"Here, let me show you some examples."

The whole exchange probably took four minutes. What an ordeal!

Mike Morsch is executive editor of Montgomery Newspapers. He can be reached by calling 215-542-0200, ext. 415, or by email at msquared35@yahoo.com.

Call this man. Tell him to stop.