To the editor:
Of all the challenges I have faced in life none have given me more problems than trying to understand the female mind. My most recent puzzlement was my other half’s logic on not letting me have the face plate for the radio in my car. The face plate on some radios is a front plate of the radio that can be removed to make the radio useless, thus not worth stealing.
When I asked her for it so I could use the radio she said she hid it. Her logic was that if she gave it to me I would either lose it or break it, then I wouldn’t be able to use the radio. I tried to explain that her hiding it on me had same results as me losing it. She repeated her answer that if I lost it, the radio would then be useless, but by her hiding it on me the radio would remain operational. She said it in a tone that seemed patronizing to me, like she was talking to a 5-year-old. My rebuttal was what good was the radio if I couldn’t listen to it? Her response was what good was the radio if I lost the face plate?
I should have quit there.
Instead I said that what she was saying didn’t make any sense. She asked me if I was calling her stupid. I foolishly said that just that because she said foolish things didn’t mean that she was stupid. I knew instantly that I should have worded that statement differently, but it was too late.
She asked if I thought of her as derisory. I had no idea what derisory meant but I knew when we had differences of opinion her vocabulary consisted of mostly four-letter words so using a word like derisory couldn’t be good, so I told her, “Certainly not.”
It was obvious to me that I was digging a hole I couldn’t climb out of, so I quickly retreated to the man cave, renamed the doghouse, where I could watch TV.
Walter Crean
Madawaska
