About Me

My photo
I'm a life-long New Englander, father of 4 challenging kids (I know: I'm supposed to say "wonderful", but while that'd be true, technically speaking, it'd also be misleading), and fortunate husband to my favorite wife of more than 20 years. I've got over 20 years experience breaking things as a test engineer, quality engineer, reliability engineer, and most recently (and most enjoyably) a Product Safety / EMC Compliance Engineer. In the photo, I'm on the left.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Curmudgeonly Wisdom on The Nature of Women

I fairly recently found a file that I had long ago thought was long-gone: my old MS Outlook pst file! This single file held a huge cache of e-mails dating back years. I almost cried when I thought I had lost it.

I thought I'd share you a bit of my finite wisdom, which had been buried in this treasure mine and that I recently unearthed:

The set-up:

A friend of mine had recently gotten married, and he was going through some growing pains as he adjusted out of his decades-long life as a bachelor. His new wife and her young daughter had moved into his heretofore inviolate bachelor pad. One day he sent to a few of his long-married friends this missive:

Just so I’m clear, is it in a woman’s nature to rearrange furniture at least twice in a year?

I did my level-best to help:

1) Your question suggests that any man (any of these three men, particularly) would have ANY insight regarding "woman's nature"
2) It is my experience that womenfolk do tend to get tired of the same arrangement of furniture on a periodic basis
3) They will similarly get tired of specific pieces of furniture on a periodic bases

At times like this, you might come home from work one day to find that a particular piece of furniture that they bought some years ago has been replaced by a new piece of similar furniture. DO NOT BE SURPRISED if she contends that she has always hated the replaced piece of furniture, and that it "had to go", her "being sick of it".

IMPORTANT NOTE: when this happens to you DO NOT (repeat: DO NOT) ask her why she purchased the piece of furniture that she now declares that she never liked. Questions like this are documented as being responsible for things like the Chernobyl incident, the Three Mile Island disaster, Mount Vesuvius, and the Permian Extinction (not to mention the end of the dinosaur's reign).

Man's Logic: If you didn't like it, then why did you buy it?
Womans "Logic": lakuerpkjk jfoiwej qw345 kdouks iowiefdks!! (When you manage to decode this, please forward the "rationale" to me...I'd be very interested. Perhaps we could make a sort of rosetta stone out of the answer.

Quick survey:
Pre-Nuptual: How many items did you have in your ownership that were floral in decoration? Call this answer "A"
Post-Nuptual: How many items do you have in your ownership that are floral in decoration? Call this answer "B"

B-A=X

We're not sure what exactly "X" is, but as a numerical value we belive that it will have some impact on man's ultimate salvation. Please note that in MOST circumstances, B is extrememly close to X.

Let me know when you show up at home and find the place completely re-painted (or when you wake up in the morning and find similar phemonena). My favorite is coming home and finding either new walls in places where there weren't walls, or no walls in places where there WERE walls.

I'll say again what I said when I heard that you were getting married: Good luck with that. 

10 comments:

  1. Oh no, I was just recently getting rather miffed about our coffee table. LOL.

    Funny post. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. As one of those females who likes to rearrange and buy new furniture occasionally let me just say that I find some things about men totally unexplainable as well.
    a) the collection of filthy and worn out baseball caps mouldering in the corner
    b) the collection of loose screws, nails, nuts and bolts spread like icing on a cake over the entire house
    c) the screwdrivers that get left where ever the job was finished (or not) because you may need them right there in that exact spot at some undetermined date in the future
    d) unreasonable requests to find said screwdrivers because obviously it is the wifes fault that they are not in the proper holder in the workshop (I left it right HERE)
    sure you did honey
    e) and the ever popular "I'll do it tomorrow if it doesn't rain, isn't windy or not too hot or cold, or if I don't have anything better to do.
    Gee...just thinking about all that makes we want to go out and replace a piece of furniture with the exact same thing.
    Getting maried? Good luck with that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL! Mysteries abound on both side of the wedding fence! :)

      I suppose that's part of the grander design!

      Delete
  3. Yeah, what Lawless said. Plus: Why is the box of tin foil in the soapy dishwater? What is the film all over the kitchen that appeared after you made a sandwich? Why is the floor around the toilet sticky?
    The coffee table is warped. And we need new curtains.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ugh...crap in the sink that doesn't belong there! I *hate* that. From used paper towels to straws, plastic spoons, paper cups, FOOD! Ugh...couldn't agree more (but to be fair: I'm not the one putting them there, and neither is the wife).

      Delete
  4. Sorry, STG, we women are ganging up you. However, Delores is right on. We all know that if men had their way, the only furniture needed in a room would be as many BarcaLoungers as possible and a 90" flat screen TV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's ok...I suppose it was foreseeable. :) I don't think you're right though: I would need a gaming table, a foos-ball game, and a huge book case.

      Do you think that 90" is big enough? :)

      Delete
  5. I don't rearrange furniture (much) but I also resent the collection of miscellaneous screws, nuts and bolts. I can see the use of such a collection. It doesn't belong on the dining table, on the bed, or in the bathroom. None of the things in this collection change kitty litter so it doesn't belong with the spare kitty litter either. And don't ask me where it is - look with your eyes not your mouth.
    Sorry, not usually this crabby. Going away quietly now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All good points! My screws, nuts, and bolts are about 99.95% in the workshop, where they belong. Only a lone screwdriver (with four bits: Lager & Small Phillips & Straight) and a tiny hammer live in a drawer in the kitchen - those things come in handy way too often.

      Delete