Since you asked ...

This is an excerpt from I Love a Man in Uniform by Lily Burana. She's attending a military dinner with her husband and meeting other officers' wives for the first time:

One of the women looks me over. "Is your husband an Academy graduate?"

He isn't, I explain. He received his commission through ROTC.

She nods, lips pursed.

When she discovers that my husband is a major, she makes a point of telling me that hers is a colonel. She asks where we were stationed before, how long we have been married, and if we have any children. The expression on her face shifts with every question I answer, and I get the sense that our conversation is not so much a friendly exchange of personal history as a way of gathering information that can, and will, be used against me.

"So," she says, "where did you meet your husband?" She pauses for a chilly, bristling beat. "In a bar?"

... maybe this verbal hazing is part of the getting-to-know-you process. I can't tell if this woman expects me to fire back. I didn't get the secret Army wife decoder ring. All I know is that she intended to make me feel bad and she succeeded.

Aside from a handful of women, mostly from my husband's pilot training class, I share these exact feelings when meeting officers' wives. It's why I "opt out" of most wife things. It's too much pressure. Most days, I'm thrilled just to get a shower ... forgot competing with my husband's rank, education, the size of my house, and the shade of my lipstick.

Also, someone should feed this line to my husband:

As I recited my misgivings to Mike - that I might not meet the standards for a successful officer's wife; that I might not fit in with the other women; that I might morph into some tedious spouse-bot ...

"If I wanted a Stepford wife," Mike said, "I'd have married one."

That ends today's book report.