"Do these pants look too small on me?"

My wife asked me this during a recent weekend string of errands that (unknown to me, beforehand) included a stop at the local Anne Taylor.

It's a deceptively difficult question, since the correct response is so obvious:

"No, Honey, you look amazing"

Knowing what to say is easy. The hard part is figuring out how long to pretend to think about it before saying it. Answering too quickly sounds condescending, dismissive, and will surely land you in trouble. But answering too slowly is worse. She'll assume you really do think she looks fat, and that you're struggling to find a diplomatic response. In which case you can forget about sex afterwards, which is the only reason straight men ever go shopping with their wives/girlfriends. Unless it’s for a new Weber barbecue at The Home Depot, but how often does that happen?

Personally, I prefer the tactic of deflection:

"Hmm… I don’t know. How do they look to you?"

This has the virtue of lacking any substantive evidence that might be held against me, yet still sounds sensitive and engaged. Women dig sensitive men, so it’s important to know how to fake it convincingly.

Better still is to arrange a date for her to go shopping with her friends. Buy her a gift card for a massage/manicure, arrange lunch for her with her girlfriends, and then off to Anne Taylor or whatever Godforsaken place they want.

You won’t have to be there, AND you’ll still be building sex creds.

Win and Win. Probably the best of all possible worlds, at least until the corporate merger between Anne Taylor and Home Depot.