Just answer the question, please

I recently had dinner with a group of women I didn't know all that well (anything to get out of cooking). We chatted about typical girl stuff -- kids, in-laws, why men can find the exact 2-inch nail they need at Home Depot but fail to observe the gallon of milk sitting right in front of them on the top shelf of the refrigerator, etc. Everyone was quite nice and I was finally beginning to relax when the Dreaded Question came.

I knew it would come. It always does with people of a short acquaintance, but that doesn't make it any easier. I hate this question. I hate this question because I do not know the answer.

"So, what does your husband do?"

I swallowed and said to everyone at the table, "He works for an investment company."

They waited expectantly for more.

I swallowed again and said, "He does market data analysis."

When I didn't say anything else, one woman ventured to ask, "Is it classified? You can't say any more than that?" These women were steeped in military and government life, and they understood classified information.

My mouth wanted to say Yes, yes, that's it, but my head shook itself no. I said with some shame, "No, I can't say any more than that because...I don't know any more than that."

They nodded knowingly. They, too, were Women Without a Clue About Their Husband's Profession.

Well, maybe "without a clue" is too strong. See, I do know that Joe's job can roughly be divided into two parts:

1) Programming
2) Stuff that is not programming

It's that second part about which I am clueless. Oh, he's tried explaining it to me. In fact he talks about it quite a bit, but not in words that I can understand. The only thing I know about Number 2 -- this is gleaned from occasional phone calls to him at work and hints he drops during dinner conversations -- is that it includes maligning the pathetic local football team with his colleagues, debating the merits of power tools versus hand tools, and arguing whether Obama or Clinton is more liberal. I have a hunch -- call it women's intuition -- that there is more to it than that. What it might be, I have no idea.

I don't know how this happened. Before I was married, I vowed that I would never be one of those women who don't really know what their husband does. Good grief, my single self would think whenever I came across one of these unfortunate individuals, how can a woman live with a man and not know what he does for 8 or 10 hours a day? I told myself that, were I married, I would certainly know the answer to the Dreaded Question.

You can see how well I have kept this vow.

Almost as bad as the Dreaded Question is when people ask the name of the company where Joe works, as if that's going to help them any. I cringe and say the name of a company most well known for its soup. The next question, like the Dreaded Question, is inevitable.

"Campbell? Like the soup?"

Why, I think to myself in silent agony, couldn't he work in some simple-to-explain field, like advertising? Or garbage collecting? And for a company that doesn't sound like something you eat when you're sick?

No, I want to say to these people, not like the soup -- more like wheat and coffee and sugar. But I do not say this. I merely smile politely and shake my head. (Sometimes, to ward off the question, I tell people he works at "Campbell-Not-the-Soup.")

I console myself with the thought that if other people think Campbell Soup is an investment company, they are even more uninformed than I am.