Musings Of A Muddled Male

What is Truth?

By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

       I began this on the last day of June, a month considered by many to be the month for brides.  If June is the brides’ month, then May might be considered the groom’s last month.  Now I don’t mean to imply that getting married for men is like dying.  I just mean that the month before the nuptials is the last time he will be allowed to be right in spite of the fact that he will soon learn that he is usually wrong.

       There is something you need to know about the difference between men and women.  During the telling of a story women demand total accuracy of facts, right down to the most minuscule of jots and tittles.  Men, on the other hand, feel comfortable exaggerating just a little if it makes the story better.  Nanny, my matriarchal grandmother used to say, “Bob, never spoil a story for the sake of the truth.”  Ann, my wife, will claim that I am a staunch adherent to Nanny’s wise counsel.

       Let me give you an example of the different ways Ann and I might approach the truth.  I was once regaling a group with a really funny story about driving when I said, “I must have been doing 200 miles-per-hour.”  Before I could begin the punch line she said, “Actually he was doing less than fifty because we were on a sharp curve at the time and besides, he rarely drives over 40 anyway because he is a doddering old man who drives most of the time with his left turn signal on.”  Then she said, “Go on with your story dear, you had just started to tell us the funny part about what happened when you were driving fast.”

       Well, by now everyone was focused on “doddering old man with his left turn signal on,” and began to wander away.  So I gave up and decided that from that point forward I would always tell the complete and total truth.

       In keeping with my new goal to only tell the complete and total truth, I am admitting that I made some of that up.  I leave it to you to determine which part.

I first wrote this story in 2008 and decided to submit it to our editor for this weeks Muddled Male Column.  When I read it to Ann, my wife, to get her editorial approval, as I usually do to stay out of trouble, she said, “It is 2016 and in February you turned 81.  The part about the doddering old man driving with his left turn signal on is now completely true.”  So you see, I am wrong again.

       Bob Stevens

       muddledmale@gmail.com

(The editor:  It is not Ann it is the Unmuddled Mathematician, he who must be accurate!)