Musings Of A Muddled Male

There are Men and then there are Women
Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

Have you ever taken the time to ponder the subtle yet distinct differences between men and women? Take the checkout stand for instance. When a man buys a donut for sixty-five cents he carries it to the checkout stand, takes a bite out of the donut, and plunks down a twenty-dollar bill. The sales clerk pushes a button to automatically drop thirty-five cents in coins into a metal tray and the man scoops them up and stuffs them into his pocket. The clerk then hands him a ten, a five, and four ones which the man slips into his wallet before stuffing the wallet into his back pocket. If he is trying to impress someone he folds the paper currency carefully and holds it with a fake gold clip which he then stuffs into his pocket with the coins. The whole process takes ten seconds or less.

When a woman shopper gets to the checkout stand she considers it her duty to give the exact change to the sales clerk. While the woman stirs through a purse the size of a beluga whale looking for just one more dime, a nickel, and two pennies, a line of waiting shoppers gets longer and longer …. And grumpier and grumpier. Ann, my wife, is convinced that providing the exact change saves time for the clerk, and those angry people behind us are just thoughtless, undisciplined cranks.

A truly devoted husband would ignore the risk and stand there as a shield to protect his wife, no matter how long it takes to locate the needed coins. I am sad to say, however, that courage is not my forte. Usually I sneak away so that people don’t know we are together. Sometimes I join the mob and hope that they think I am just one of them. So if you see a long line of angry customers being held up by a woman rummaging through an oversized purse, and her wimpy husband is cowering amongst the undisciplined cranks, be patient. It may be a lady looking for the exact change to save time for the clerk.

And what about temperature? If there really is such a thing as reincarnation, I have decided that in my second life I would rather not be a thermostat. Sure the modern programmable version of such a device makes being one look like a cushy job; but it is not. You probably think that all the thermostat has to do is to know the current temperature and, if it is lower than the temperature requested, turn on the heat. If it is higher than requested, turn on the cooler. If that were true, the thermostat could just spend the rest of the time hanging around doing nothing except to occasionally compare the two temperatures. That might be possible if there were only men in the world, but God also created women.

Men, you see, are simple creatures who are warm and need cooling if working outside in the sun. Cool and need warming otherwise. Women, on the other hand, are much more complicated because the temperature they feel has nothing to do with temperature. It is all about hormones. Men warm up and cool down gradually. But women are binary creatures who are either hot or cold but never “just right,” to quote Goldilocks. And the change from one to the other occurs instantly.

Riding with Ann, my wife, on a trip is only survivable if you understand layering and are a quick change artist. It can be subzero temperature outside and the heater keeping the temperature inside “just right,” when suddenly the air conditioner is set on high and all the windows are wide open. “Are we warm,” I ask as I try to add layers and drive at the same time. 

You young men think I’m kidding, but just wait.