We Really Are That Stupid

            Sometimes my wife says she can’t believe how stupid men are. Of course, she is basing this generalization on the example of the one she is married to. But all kidding aside, she literally can’t believe it, so she logically thinks that I must be pretending to be stupid in order to avoid responsibility. Well, I’m here to proudly proclaim that she is mistaken – I really am as stupid as she can’t believe I am. Probably most men are – if you can believe the words of a stupid person. And no, I did not leave the spilled water on the floor in front of the refrigerator because I’m making a point that “Wifey” will clean up after me. I stupidly thought it would evaporate before she stepped in it.

            Take the other day, for example. Am I so stupid that I can’t see the cookie jar on the shelf at eye level in the pantry, or am I asking her to come help me “find” it to teach her some obscure lesson? Am I simply stupid, or did I deliberately place the garbage cans in the garage so I would block her access to her gardening tools? Do I confuse weeds and flowers in order to avoid the dubious pleasures of gardening? How can I misunderstand when she asks, “Get me that red thing in the basement, would you please?” And I go down there and grope around for half an hour until she comes down herself to get it the jar with the red lid for the bacon grease.

            Sometimes my stupidity is misinterpreted as a stupid joke attempt. But no, I did not make the bed “wrong” in an attempt to be funny. It looked OK to me – or at least it would have looked OK had I bothered to look.

            Sometimes my stupidity is misinterpreted as a deliberate attempt to drive her insane. That’s why, she thinks, I never return the furniture to the proper spots after I vacuum the rugs or mop the floor. No, I do so out of stupidity, and if I did do it on purpose, it would be to remind her that I did do the vacuuming, plus it helps remind me what rooms I did. Or why I can’t remember whether the new toilet paper should be inserted with the roll feeding over the top and down the front or down the back and out the bottom. The truth is, I don’t need to deliberately try to do anything in order to drive her insane because I appear to be doing it without any special effort on my part. No, I did not mess with the thermostat – again.

            OK – I confess that sometimes I do pretend to be dumb. Dumb as in selectively hard of hearing. Sometimes I only half hear something she says from the next room because I am busily figuring out how to solve global warming, the threat of terrorism and the Medicare crisis while at the same time devising a way to reroute noisy gravel trucks away from our bedroom window. And all that comes through is “. . . would you please . . . for me . . . garage . . . the red one?” Well, I have a choice: I can pause in my deep thoughts to walk in and ask her to repeat what she said, only to be told, “Why should I? You never listen anyway.” Or I can choose to pretend I heard nothing at all and resume saving the planet. It’s a tough choice for me, but sometimes the planet wins.

            Other than that, though, it really is stupidity. And I think I should be given credit for it.

How to Choose Friends: A Guide for Guys

            Some people say that friendship is based on respect and trust. On sincerely caring about the feelings and wellbeing of another person. Others argue that friendship involves mutual acceptance and the ability to make you each feel good about yourselves. It’s a kind of mutual affection of a non-sexual nature. I suppose this is all true. Blah blah blah.

            But most guys have a different sense of friendship, one based on reciprocity. Guys become and remain friends because they give each other something they need. Or want.

            With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of people you want to have as a friend.

1.     You want a friend with a truck. You know you will have to move stuff some day, and renting a truck can be expensive. Your friend may loan you his or her truck, or better yet, may drive it for you and thus be available to help you load and unload your stuff.

2.     You want a friend who can give a massage. As you get older, aches and pains increase, especially after loading and unloading stuff from a truck. Besides, research has shown that being touched by another person releases beneficial endorphins. And if you are the kind of person who chooses friends from reading a list like mine, you are unlikely to have a lover who will touch you.

3.     You want a friend who lives in a cool place. Like maybe the beach or the mountains or New York. You probably don’t want to live there yourself: Beaches have hurricanes and sand, mountains have snow to shovel, and New York has New Yorkers.

4.     You want a friend who can bake. Cookies. Home made breads. Blueberry pie. Scones. Brownies. Any questions about this one?

5.     A friend who is a nurse always comes in handy. Probably better than a doctor, who is most likely to specialized to be much help. A physical therapist might fill the bill here. This type of friend probably won’t help much if you’ve simply eaten too many cookies.

6.     You want a friend who can deal with computer stuff that baffles you. Like your telephone. Your television remote. Your car’s GPS. The water softener. The alarm system in your home. Your computer itself, where the list of items under “Preferences” is not extensive enough by far.

7.     Ever wonder where a great little restaurant in town is located? Or if you are a birder, where you might find an elusive Grasshopper Sparrow? Where is the best place to photograph a sunset or morning mist? Where to buy the best cheese? Where to see bats? Where to buy massage oil as a gift for friend #2? Well, you need to cultivate a friend or two who knows where to go – wherever that might be for you.

8.     You need a relationships coach. This friend will most likely be female, as guys tend to be too selfish and insensitive to do you much good. Relationships all eventually run into problems, and these problems don’t fix themselves. One danger here is that your coach might tend to micro-manage. Ever call for computer tech support and you allow some guy in India to take over your computer for ten minutes? You watch stuff move around on your screen and somehow the problem gets fixed – and you have no clue how? Well, you don’t want to be that guy in the hands of a relationship coach. Remember, 90% of your computer problems get fixed when you simply restart your computer. You might try that with your relationship before enlisting the aid of this kind of friend.

9.     Someone who tells the truth? No, I don’t think so. As Jack Nicholson told us, “You can’t handle the truth.” So instead, get a friend who tells you, in another Nicholson quote, “a version of the truth.” Versions are all we have. Versions of the truth. Versions of friends. So find a version of a friend who will tell you a version of the truth that maybe you don’t want to hear. If you find a friend candidate who offers to tell you The Truth in capital letters, respond with a polite, “No, thanks,” and head for the door. Certainty, after all, is a sign of a closed mind. (That’s from another movie.)

            Some would argue that this list is not about friendship. It’s about using other people to further our selfish ends. And my wife would be right when she says this. But selfish exploitation is not the most serious problem with my modest proposal. No, the main difficulty is that I have failed to come up with a criterion by which I qualify as friend-worthy. Massage? Nope. Ditto for nursing, baking, tech support, trucking, and location (unless university towns qualify). Relationships? I lucked out on my (second) marriage, and I’m clueless enough to take Kim’s frustrated sigh as forgiveness. I may be OK on cool locations, but I’m likely to get lost trying to get there.

            Which leaves truth-telling. This may be my best shot. Emily Dickinson wrote, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.” Maybe I can slide in on that slant.

How to Barter: A Guide for Men

            A friend wrote me a suggestion about how to make challenging situations work for you: “Bag it, barter it, or better it.”

            I replied to her that I know a lot about bagging it – how else could I survive into my 70s – and I regard bettering it from a sympathetic distance, but I’m not sure about bartering.

            She responded with an example: “There's a job I don't like to do, e.g., scrub pans, so I offer a barter:  I'll do the rest of the clean-up if you scrub the pans.”

            Note, in this example, that the exchange was “you scrub the pans” for “I’ll do the rest of the clean-up.” The man has a specifically defined task while the woman’s commitment is huge. “The rest of the clean-up” includes dishes, along with vacuuming, washing windows, and detailing the car. This kind of barter only works once, if you define “works” not to include your wife’s smoldering anger for a week or so.

            I believe that most men are not very skilled at bartering with women, mainly because we don’t grasp the value that women place on what they are offering and what we are offering. With that in mind, I have a few suggestions of barters that have worked for me:

·      You’ll prepare a three-course meal if I open the wine and then clean my plate.

·      You’ll negotiate the relationships with our children if I listen attentively to your description of the negotiations.

·      You’ll look after the grandchildren if I stay in the room with you and offer to “help.”

·      You’ll prepare meals for holiday events if I reach stuff on the high pantry shelves, unscrew tight jar lids, and ask for seconds of every delicious dish.

·      I’ll wear my clothes if you pick them out for me.

·      I’ll let you tuck in my shirt if you do it slowly.

·      I’ll weed the garden if you tell me which are weeds and which are flowers.

·      I’ll help you with your computer issues if you give me control of the tv remote.

·      I’ll drive on trips if you don’t laugh aloud when I get angry about being lost.

·      I’ll help select potential girlfriends for our son if you let me stare at other women.

·      I’ll give you a back massage if you have a drink before we get started.

·      I’ll make the after-dinner drinks if you drink them and forget about previous bartering.

            I suspect that the above list is not in the spirit of my friend’s “bag it, barter it or better it.” She may think these are typical strategies men use to take advantage of the good nature of women. She may think this is not really bartering. And I’ll agree with her if she doesn’t tell my wife.

My Toolbox

            “The only tool in my toolbox is my checkbook.”

            While I’m not the person who said that first, I’ve adopted the line as my own. It’s not literally true, of course. I do have a toolbox. We keep it stored behind the door that leads into a small storage area behind the furnace. Sometimes I have to move a chair to get to it. Because the area has no light, I have to get a flashlight in order to see what is in the toolbox. No checkbook, but rather a tame assortment of screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers, plus about a half-dozen items whose name and use I don’t know, but they look too important to throw away.

            Not that I’m complaining. If I had a fully equipped toolbox, or perhaps a workbench with all the manly tools hung against their silhouettes on a pegboard, then I might be expected to use them. Several years ago I attempted to fix a drippy kitchen faucet by taking the top assembly apart, staring at it, rinsing off the washers and whatever else I could find in there, and then carefully putting it back together. It still dripped, to no one’s surprise, so I tightened everything, and then tightened it all a bit more.

            The next day Kim called a plumber. Fortunately, I was not home when he arrived, but he advised her, “Tell your husband to stay away from the plumbing.” I have taken his advice, after a brief but unconvincing performance of being offended. The plumber was able to undo what I had damaged but cautioned us that an expensive replacement was at hand, so we took the next logical step. We sold the house.

            My pipe wrench remains in my toolbox except when I need to open a stubborn jar.

            Kim has several toolboxes. She has at least two holding her various arts and crafts supplies, and she has this uncanny knack of using the right tool for the right job. None of her tools is bent, and I am told to stay away from them. She also has a tool drawer in the cabinet that stands in the basement, a beautiful piece with drawer pulls made of deer antlers. Kim’s dad made it when he was about 15 – the age when I was struggling to open Band-Aid envelopes by pulling the red thread down the side. I used some tools from her tool drawer once, but I won’t do it again.

            Kim and I have one of those progressive, stereotype-breaking marriages. One stereotype we break is the one that says that guys are better at fixing things. When we first got married I figured that one of the special talents I brought to our union was painting, especially painting ceilings and the high areas of walls because I am tall. Apparently my physical height is not a sufficient qualification. After about a half hour of painting walls in our new house, Kim assigned me to paint the inside of a bedroom closet. More specifically, it was the wall of the closet that you can only see when you are standing inside of the closet looking out through the door. I’d gotten most of the primer on when I needed to go on a series of errands – for sandpaper, for sticks to stir the paint, for soft drinks. You get the picture. In our kitchen pantry I painted the bottom side of the lowest shelves – the area you see if you are an ant or a spilled Cheerio.

            One of the many benefits to having a toolbox like mine occurs when I’m sitting in an airport or even stuck on the tarmac, my flight delayed because of some mechanical problem, one which, thankfully, I am not expected to fix. While other passengers may fret and complain, I simply open my toolbox and take out the long novel I’ve brought for just such an emergency.