Husband chair

WE TALK about wrapping kids in cotton wool, but now it is the turn of husbands.

Shopping malls across China are introducing ‘husband storage,’ cloakrooms where the chaps can sit, snooze or surf the internet while their wives are spending money in the shops.

Don’t know about what you think, but this is getting over the top. Can’t they just leave them at home or in the pub?

But any man knows what mental torture it can be to accompany our fairer sex, while they plunge into shopping worlds unfamiliar to us.

In this case a man must think laterally and get on with it.

Coming up to a special event, my wife decided, “there were no (suitable) dresses in Dalby or Toowoomba” and insisted on an expedition to the glittering magnets of Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall.

At every shop, on the long day of her trying on most every dress, I enjoyed a very pleasant time. Firstly, I asked politely for a ‘Husband Chair’ and staff were always happy to oblige the man with the dough.

Then, I pulled out my library book, the fascinating ‘Seven Wonders of the Industrial World,’ by Deborah Cadbury and based on the BBC Television series of the same name.

I was lost in the wonder of stories, such as how the English engineer and inventor, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, built The Great Eastern, the Titanic ship of its day that linked the ends of Empire.

My wife finished the day with what was, to her, the finest gown chase that year.

I left Brisbane, having been engrossed in an excellent book and with the wonderment of shop staff marvelling at male patience, ringing in my ears.

As the Chinese call it, ‘husband storage’ can be done with a bit of imagination.

— PETER KNOBEL, Toowoomba