The Fake Guy Cry

My friend has been planning a surprise for his wife's birthday for a while now. They moved away from home over a year ago, for school, and the homesickness has been wearing on both of them. The surprise was to fly in her mother and sister to be there on her birthday and spend the weekend. Now, his wife is a young one, but sly, and particularly hard to fool. She started to suspect, and in a moment of either raw weakness or cunning guile, she asks him, through tears, if he's sure that her birthday present isn't her sister coming to visit. Like the kind and caring husband he's pretending to be, he pulls her in close and whispers "I wish it were." He soothes her, and then to seal it, he begins to fake cry himself. Apparently she's satisfied.

But I'm not. Here's the problem, and this goes out to not only my friend, but all the young husbands out there. The fake cry is a last resort technique, not one to be wasted on a mere surprise party. God willing, you've got another forty or fifty years of bliss with your bride, and some day, you're going to wish you had that fake cry back. You only get to use it once - maybe twice - in all your years together, so save it for that clutch moment when you can maximize its effectiveness. It's like the flea flicker in football, or the flush draw bluff in poker. Once she knows you are capable of the fake cry, she'll never forget it, and it's never going to work again. What about when you lose a few thousand dollars in the market? Or the casino, for that matter? What about when you forget a birthday or anniversary? Young men, I implore you not to use the fake cry frivolously. Beware its power and its ephemeral nature. Give the fake cry the respect it deserves and reserve it for those times when destiny forces you down the path of destruction and your only recourse is a salty charade.