A man refusing to ask for directions is one of the oldest comedy shticks
out there. I swore I'd never go there.
HOWEVER, my son has a talent for changing my mind.
Yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Snark handed her teenager $20 and said,
"Son, please ride your bike down to the grocery store and buy me a package
of tortillas. We're having tacos for dinner."
After the obligatory grumbling on his part, Mrs. Snark threw in a bribe.
"You can go ahead and purchase yourself a package of red licorice."
Properly incentivized, The Boy departed on his bike to the corner market.
A half hour later, the door banged open and he returned with a plastic grocery
bag clutched in his hand.
"Mom, I couldn't find the tortillas," The Boy said.
Mrs. Snark peered into the bag. "I see you managed to find the
licorice."
Mrs. Snark removed the licorice just in case the tortillas were
underneath. However, she found only the lonely paper receipt and nothing else.
"Mom, I looked everywhere and there were no tortillas."
"Son, did you ask a grocery store employee where the tortillas were
at?" Mrs. Snark asked.
The Boy said: "Mom, I have a brain
and I like to find things by myself."
Mrs. Snark bit through her tongue and nearly died
from deep vein thrombosis due to the stitch in her side.
Wait.
Wait for it.
"Son, you do know the bag is empty, don't you? It would
appear that your brain has fallen down on the job."
The bedroom door banged shut, swallowing The Boy's reply.
It's not the Y chromosome, Plenty of women do it too. Independence is not always a bad thing. My wife calls and asks if I need anything for the new TV I bought the family for Xmas, so I tell her we need an antenna for digital TV, because our old one is for analog. She says ok, and then calls me back when she's at the electronic center. She says, she can't find one marked as I specified, and read off a dozen different gadget. Without being able to see all the capabilities and functions of each of these machines she rattled off, and not having a half hour to sit on the phone and have her read all the technical specs of each... I asked her if there was a clerk nearby. She says, yes, Just five feet from her. I tell her to ask the clerk if any of those products will work as a digital broadcast antenna, for a digital, not analog, TV.
ReplyDeleteShe says, this one has a picture of a TV like ours, I'll get it. I say, just ask the clerk. She offers a few excuses and I can see she isn't going to ask, so I say, you're at Walmart? She says yes. I say, they have an excellent return policy, get the one you think will work, we can return it if it doesn't work...
The good news is, it worked. But hell would've frozen over before she would ask a clerk standing nearby for help finding what we needed.
Then, the day before, We went to have family pics done and while we're waiting for the picture to be developed, my 13 y/o daughter and I head to Starbucks to get drinks for all of us. She wants to do the ordering and paying, so I step back. Her nickname is Arry, which when they wrote her name on the cups for the Barista, it often looks like Amy instead of Arry. This has happened a few times. The mall Starbucks was crazy busy, but after the people ahead of us got their drinks, they called out "Amy". My daughter knows, as do I, it was a mistake and it was our drink. So I tell her to go ask if it was Arry instead of Amy, but she won't. Deciding this was a good time to make an example for her, I tell her, it’s her decision, since she's doing the ordering and paying and all that. Someone else grabs the drink, thinking they said "Eileen" instead of "Amy"... 2 minutes later, they come back and tell the Barista that it wasn't what they ordered. I nodded to my daughter, that it was a good time to go up and correct them, so they can remake our drink. She won't, so I do it, because we're now 20 minutes into getting mochas!!
Anyway, that's my family, but I see many women unwilling to ask for directions or help. I'm a guy and hate asking for help or directions too, but it’s not just a guy thing. =oP
Brindle Chase
www.forlorn-hope.net
Brindle,
DeleteThanks for dropping by, reading and commenting. :)
As the boy's mother, I retain the ambition of teaching him common sense before he turns thirty and moves out. Also, that tacos taste much better on tortillas than paper towels. :D
Sounds like you have a bunch 'o stubborn women in your family. :)