A boyfriend of mine liked toothpicks. We never discussed it. I just noticed. The way you notice anything about anyone you actually want, which is to say constantly and against your will.

He went out of town for a week. While he was gone, I researched toothpicks. Sandalwood. Mint-infused. Cinnamon. Some Japanese cypress thing that came in a tiny wooden box that looked like it belonged in a museum. I had four different kinds shipped to my house. They cost me almost nothing. A few minutes on a laptop one night while I was already online doing something else.

He came back. We had dinner. At the end of dinner, I passed him four toothpicks across the table.

That was the whole thing. That was the entire move. He had not told me he liked toothpicks. He had never given me a list. There was no occasion. I had paid attention, and I had answered a question he never asked.

Reader, that man fucked me like he was trying to thank God.

This is the bar. This is what Mother’s Day requires. 

Moms don’t want flowers from the same grocery store where she does the actual grocery shopping. Not a card written in the parking lot. Not brunch where she ends up cutting someone’s pancakes. Not a candle. Never a candle. The bar is one thing she would love that she doesn’t know you know. Better: that she doesn’t think anyone but her needs to know. 

You have to actually pay attention to a woman to do this. You have to have noticed something. A brand of pen. A pair of socks she wears until they have holes. A song she hums when she’s loading the dishwasher. A magazine she used to read and stopped buying when the kids came. A snack from her childhood. The specific kind of olive she picks out of every salad. One thing. One offering. Something that proves you have been in the room with her and not just adjacent to her.

Women need to feel their emotional value to get wet. Period. Print that. Tattoo it. I’m giving it to you for free.

The second thing: You clear her plate. You do the dishes. You do the tasks she normally does that keep the household running. You do not narrate doing it, nor do you ask her what exactly you should do. You just do it.

The whole day, she gets to be a person. Within this, obviously, sits childcare. Within this sits cleaning the house without announcing it. 

So. Brass tacks.

One: Find one thing she would love that she doesn’t know you know. Cost: usually nothing. Reward: she will fuck you like you’ve done something genuinely surprising, because you will have.

Two: Do what needs to be done. 

You’re not going to have the element of surprise every day of your life together, but if you pay attention and do the everyday things without being asked, you can get laid like I did when I got the toothpicks. Do this on Mother’s Day. Then do it Monday. Then do it Tuesday. You can get fucked every day of your life. This is akin to the guy who makes the dinner reservation without asking. He doesn’t make a big deal of it, he just does it. He gets laid like there’s no tomorrow because he paid attention, then took initiative. 

Pay attention to the woman you want to fuck.

Happy Mother’s Day.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​