It just so happens that in life there are those who can read and follow directions, like most women, and then there are those, like most men, who could not find the bathroom in their very own home even if being led there, by the hand, by a qualified search and rescue team.
So, pretty much any time you enter a home containing a man, there’s a better than even chance you will find him standing in the kitchen, with a dumfounded look on his face, a bladder which has swelled large enough to be considered a potential tsunami hazard, as he desperately plots to relieve himself in the petunia plant’s pot which is going to have to do for the time being, because he can’t find the (nasty word) actual toilet; a (nasty word) actual toilet which he is convinced has sprouted legs, is snickering, and is tiptoeing from room to room playing a nasty game of “Hide and Go Pee With Thee!”
Anyway, on the directional flipside we have women, my wife in particular, who are all natural born navigators. And not only can women read a map and prove to their husbands that New Hampshire does not border Pluto - a long held geographical belief of mine - but they can (ready?) fold a map back into its actual original factory form and place it neatly back into the glove compartment where it can be brought out and (Oh, Lordy) used again! This is mind-boggling to a man!
The closest I’ve ever got to “folding” a map back into its original shape occurred last summer when I accidentally ripped one into confetti as I attempted to unfold it. After several sticky attempts I managed to successfully duct tape it back together forming something that looked less like a map and more like a giant gray duct tape glob so enormous it qualified as a stand-in for one of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs. Only one though… the left one.
And although the giant gray glob map had been seemingly rendered completely useless as a navigational tool, it did, however, provide me with a huge source of entertainment as I, with the help from an axe, was able to subdue it and beat it back into the glove compartment where it will sit and wait to be turned into a very valuable directional beacon (see last paragraph).
So anyway, women, especially my wife, are also very good at listening when someone gives them directions to get to places. Women get all the stop signs, all the lights, all the yields, all the one-ways, all the everything.
EXAMPLE
“Okay, now, Theresa, you go up that hill, make your way through seven lights, of which the last light is a flashing light, then you bear left, bear right, stay straight, and the building will be right in front of you. Did you get all that?”
“Yup, you go up that hill, make your way through seven lights, of which the last light is a flashing light, then you bear left, bear right, stay straight, and the building will be right in front of me. Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
Men are not so good at directions. And when someone starts to tell me directions, if there is more than one instruction I have to remember, my brain immediately shuts down, and I sit there with my eyes glazed over pretending like I’m paying attention when in fact I’m daydreaming about Jennifer Love Hewitt, and I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what they are talking about. And they might just as well be speaking to me in Swahili for all the good it is doing. [Note: This is exactly why men like NASCAR, because there is only one direction: to go in a circle. We men can handle that. This is also why men invented the “GPS.” Oh, sure, we tell everyone “GPS” stands for “Global Position System,” but the truth is “GPS” actually stands for “Guys Perpetually Stranded.”]
EXAMPLE
“Bill, listen carefully, you go down to the end of our driveway, take a left, (that’s more than one direction so at this point my brain just shut off) blah, blah, blah, ungowa, ungowa, ungowa (“ungowa” is Swahili for “blah”). Did you get all that?”
“Yup, sure did, Theresa.”
“Okay then, repeat it back to me.”
“Relax, I got it.”
“REPEAT IT BACK TO ME!”
“You go to the end of the driveway, take a left, go nine miles in that direction until you see a tree or a big rock or the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t know, you see something, and then you take a right. Okay! I told you, I got it.”
“Idiot.”
Well, join me next time where I will teach you how to turn that giant gray duct tape glob you have in your glove compartment into a valuable directional beacon (A.K.A. “bonfire”) so your wife can find you, and rescue you, because you are hopelessly lost, because you cannot follow directions, because you are a man.
