They don’t understand us.
Women, that is.
I swear that there are times when they look at us as if we’ve been dropped from the mother ship just to annoy them during critical moments of “American Idol.”
I know this because, a few nights ago, my wife was looking at me the way women do when (in exasperation) they’re thinking: “Lord, what is that man up to now?”
Such from my beloved. Such from the woman who’s lived with me for 36 years. The woman who bears my last name and bore my children.
This time that look was over something I could’ve explained to another male in about five words.
“Darn. Lost my sharpening stone.”
“Yeah. Hate it when that happens. Want me to pause the movie?”
“Nah. Just call me when Dirty Harry has the guy down on the football field.”
“Right.”
“Always loved that scene.”
“Bring tears to my eyes too.”
With women, though, there’s no such understanding.
“Larry, what are you looking for?”
“My sharpening stone.”
“Why are you looking for your sharpening stone?”
“So that I can sharpen my hunting knife. Where’d you hide it?”
“Me? Hide it? Are you perhaps referring to the only rational adult in this house who’d have absolutely no use for a sharpening stone?”
I do so hate it when she uses that tone. It reeks of thinly veiled sarcasm. It alludes to her unstated belief that, whenever it was that I arrived at the fountain of knowledge, it’s pretty obvious to her that I only gargled.
“Well, someone’s moved it.”
“No one’s touched it since you last used it. Where’d you put it when you finished with it?”
“I put it where I could find it.”
“And that would be where?”
Have I mentioned that tone?
“I’m not sure.”
“Larry, it’s after 10. Why do you need to sharpen your knife tonight?”
“Because I want to get it ready for deer season, that’s why.”
“If I remember correctly, deer season doesn’t start until mid-October.”
“And your point is?”
“My point is, why are you tearing up the house on a Saturday night in April looking for a sharpening stone to sharpen a knife you won’t need for at least six months?”
Women. Whenever they don’t want to help you look for something you need, they bring large quantities of unwanted, uncalled for, and completely unnecessary logic to bear.
“And, furthermore, why are you obsessing over doing something that’ll take, at best, 10 minutes to do and could just as well be done the night before you leave?”
To this question, I gave the standard male response which, to this day, has never been understood by the female of the species.
“Because I need to.”
“Right. You need to. Now there’s a really good answer. I swear, when you get like this, I wonder why I didn’t marry Jimmy Schmidt.”
“I guess that means you’re not going to help me find it.”
“No, I’m not. What I’m going to do is go to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll go down to the sporting goods store, talk to the nice person behind the counter and tell him that I’m married to a loon who needs to sharpen his hunting knife at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night six months before hunting season. Then I’ll buy you another stone. That way we’ll keep the household sane.”
“I don’t want another stone. I want my stone.”
“You still don’t get it. As soon as I buy you a new one, the old one will turn up. Then there’ll be two. I’ll let you keep the new one and I’ll put the old one away in a place where normal people would put such things – like with your hunting gear – so that I won’t have to go through all of this again.”
Again, that detestable logic.
So, she bought me a new stone. Several days later the old one turned up. I’d put it in the back of the bathroom closet behind the towels. I remember putting it there thinking that, when I needed it, I’d also get an old towel to use as a rag and I’d be all set to go.
Anyway, I’ve now finished sharpening my knife in plenty of time for hunting season.
My wife, however, still thinks that there are times when I’m dumber than a box of bent nails.
There’s just no understanding in them.
It’s a cross we bear.
Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@att.net.
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