My wife has found me out.
My secret is no longer secret. For years whenever my wife asked me a question or when the rhythm of her voice sounded like a question and I had not been paying attention to the actual words, I would cock my head to one side as if in deep contemplation, furrow my brow a little, and say, "Hmmm. I don't know.", in a serious tone.
But years of attempted dialoge by my wife in matters of which I had absolutely no interest has dulled my attentive facade. Now, I'm mumbling "I don't know" be fore the questions have barely passed her inquisitive lips. Or, I say, "I don't know, I didn't understand what you said." Because everyone knows that, with age, hearing and a man's attention span (If I ever had one) are the first things to go.
So, now she tells me that whenever I say "I don't know.", she doesn't hear 'I don't know', all she hears is "I don't want to think about it." Which for the most part is true.
But the bummer of it is that when I do actually listen and think about whatever she has asked that I usually don't know.
Anyway, my advice to men whose mental acuity haven't been worn down and stripped bare by years of questions about things that weren't about you is this - Above all else, ALWAYS ACT like you are listening. And, occassionally DO listen. Because you never know when there's going to be a Pop Quiz.