Yes, That Dress Does Make You Look Fat

There are certain questions that guys can answer honestly at only great peril. The most famous example of this is when your girlfriend or wife asks, “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” That is not a question, it is a trap and you had better lie and lie convincingly if you prefer your ankle intact.

A former colleague told me he’d found a way to spring the trap. He called it the “like a whale” exception. He explained, his wife — who I think was with child at the time — had put on a sun dress and asked him the dread question and I guess he was feeling suicidal that day. “Like a whale,” he said. There was a pregnant pause and then she burst out laughing — and never asked him that question again.

If only Abe Lincoln had thought of that: