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Fellas, it can happen to the best of us. One minute I’m wowing LadyFish with my strength and masculinity by opening jars for her, and then later that night we are huddled around a card table saying things like “3 bam,” “soap,” or “green dragon.” I’m hoping this scenario has skipped your house, but it has become a nightly routine at mine.
Let me tell you how this happens so you can be prepared if it comes to your neighborhood. LadyFish is your typical empty nester mom who spends time every day on social media. You would be surprised at how the algorithms work for her. Every morning over breakfast I hear notifications coming from her phone touting the benefits of all sorts of things — why we should pay double for a particular type of eggs, the newest cleaning gadgets, red light therapy — and the list goes on.
Recently, the hot topic was Mahjong and how all the ladies are now playing it. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but LadyFish assures me it is the “it” thing right now. LadyFish isn’t one to ease into a hobby. She dives right into the deep end.
One day a Mahjong set appeared at our house. It looks like a set of dominoes with some dice and other do-dads thrown in. The dominoes don’t have simple dots like you’re probably thinking. They have all kinds of Chinese characters on them.
However, when she got the Mahjong set, she still had to order an official Mahjong card. I was expecting it to be pretty simple to understand — perhaps written on the third grade level. Wrong. This thing looks like the computer program that Elon Musk would use to launch rockets. It is filled with lines of numbers, letters, and symbols. These rows of “characters” represent possible hands you can complete to win the game.
I’m not going to explain the game, because frankly, I don’t know how it works. I’m just giving you a warning about what could happen if your wife gets tangled up with the wrong social media algorithms.
This is what my evenings look like now. We get home from work and eat quickly. We then typically do some sort of exercise, then it’s shower time, and then on to the highlight of the night — at least as far as LadyFish is concerned.
We meet around a card table and start shuffling — or as the Mahjong people say, “washing” — the tiles, then trying to make ours look like one of the hands on the Mahjong card. Luckily for me, LadyFin, our daughter, is home from college for the summer and has been roped into this nightly event as well. Mahjong is normally a four person game, but we only have three playing at our house. I’m sure we aren’t doing it right, but as long as LadyFish is happy, I guess we’ll keep it up.
The problem is that I’d like to play maybe two games and then head back to the living room for my “napetizer” before heading to bed. Unfortunately, LadyFin wins most of the time and LadyFish insists on playing until she wins a hand. A quick 30 minute event turns into an hour.
Again, I’m not encouraging you to mention Mahjong to your wife. I’m just giving you the worst case scenario if your wife is anything like LadyFish.
Now, if your wife goes down the Mahjong path, I am here to help in the only way I know how — Amazon. LadyFish sometimes forgets or takes for granted all of the Herculean feats of strength I perform on a daily basis. I’m betting your wife does the same. If she starts talking about Mahjong, get ahead of the situation and order a set of tiles (that’s the official name) and a set of 2026 cards. Yes, the cards change every year — don’t ask me why. Surely they didn’t swap cards out 200 years ago.
I’ll make it easy on you — here’s what we use at our house.
American Mahjong Tile Set, 166 White Tiles, 4 Color Racks, Travel Bag [https://amzn.to/4dXNflZ]
2026 NMJL Mah Jong Card, Official Revision, Large Print, 4-Pack [https://amzn.to/4uqAi9b]
I promise you, if your wife goes down the Mahjong trail and you set her up with tiles and cards, you’ve got all your bases covered. You can wow her with your manly strength during the day, and she’ll also be thrilled to play Mahjong in the evening.
