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Tuesday, August 15, 2006 

The world according to...

My mother called this early morning to ask if I could ask my mate Paul, who’s an auto-mechanic, to have a look at her misfiring car. “I am sure it is probably a minor fault. Why don’t you ask Dad to have a look at it for you?” She said, “Son, I would rather not involve your father in this. I want the car fixed, not destroyed. Your father will never admit it, but he knows diddly-squat about cars. I’ll be lucky if the car can still start after he’s looked at it, and then it will cost and arm and a leg to repair” She has a point. WISE WOMAN! (I wonder if her high-speed highway antics have anything to do with the car misfiring.) My parents’ garage is littered with appliances and repair projects that my father initiated and never completed. Come to think of it, so is mine… but we aren’t talking about me now… he he. I think I may have inherited a few traits from him. And we aren’t the only ones. The average guy will not admit defeat even when the odds are stacked against him. This becomes more so when he feels that his manhood/manliness is at stake. It is difficult to knowingly admit defeat or an inability to do something to a woman or to your mates. The mechanism that kicks in is the same one that prevents us from asking for directions, admitting to doubtful financial aptitude, or that our technical and mechanical abilities borders on zero. Couple to that an uncontrollable urge to take things apart, or put them together, and a perception that we know it all. Many generations of genetic transmutation have equipped males with a sophisticated array of defense mechanisms, all which have been designed to make us overcome the unachievable. A cruel twist of fate, but then Mother Nature is a woman, isn’t she? There exists a rift between what we think we know and the logical brain, and the ego is the guardian of the bridge traversing the rift. The rift may only be a few nanometers wide, but it may as well be the Grand Canyon. And if anything is able to make it pass the guardian and over the gap, it is filed away in subliminal memory crypt where it eventually dissolves and becomes part of a soup of non-essential information. It is the same place where anniversaries, birthdays, and dinner reservations with the in-laws are stored. A woman should never ask a guy if he knows what he is doing. How dare you, woman… of course he does! And if on the odd occasion it transpires that he really does not have a clue, a guy will hide his ineptitude behind a pile of techno mumbo-jumbo such as, “the googly that drives the ignition coil is not aligned with the thingamabob or make some stupid joke. Make no mistake... we are also the proud owner of the bullshit gene! Mother nature taketh, and she also giveth. The only time a man will instinctively throw in the towel is when it comes to life’s softer issues, such as relationship advice and talking about feelings. In these cases all you will get is a curt and decisive, “I don’t know” or “can’t you see I’m busy”. And when approached on these things by your own children, the answer almost always is… “Go and ask your mother”

Chitster ... So true, NEVER ask a guy if he knows what he is doing.

Even if it means he will fall off the roof & kill himself ~ a story I will never forget ~ he lived. (This involved installing a satellite dish on the roof, i-n-s-a-n-e!)

I still think of your Mom as the Speed Racer of SA! Does she read your bloggy?

Big smooch,
The Tart

BTW ... found a sunset for you part of the world ... stay tuned. ; )

Ps. Whatch been cookin?

"an inability to do something to a woman or to your mates"

i had to re-read that line three times before i got it :P

haven't you seen defending the caveman? it's amusing that as aware as we may be of our plight - the blocks that put us there in the first place are simply immoveable. and... (insert bullshit here) ;)

Tart: looking forward to seeing your sunset. :)
Cooking classes are going great... I have learnt to follow instructions (grr), which is tough to do as I tend to involve myself more with the people who are taking the class with me.
Moonflake: She knows better than to ask me to work on her car... I'll just say NO. And of course she knows I am not the "handiest" of men, which is why I have friends like my buddy Paul.
TW: It should have read: admit to an inability to do something to a woman or to your mates. I sometimes write as incoherently as I speak.
I've seen defending the caveman and thouht it was absolutely brilliant!

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