On Selective Memory and Other Femenine Attributes

I have mentioned several times that the bag that my wife carries around is like a "black hole": things go in and never come out again. But that is not entirely true. Occasionally, my wife will go on a "sorting out" binge (she learned her English in the UK, hence the funny terms), and out will come the most varied, not to mention old and useless, objects and articles you can imagine. Yesterday, such a singularity (a term used by cosmologist) took place.

Among other things, out of the depths of the BH (a term I will coin for that bag, black hole = BH) came two tickets to a "bateau mouche". Unless you have recently arrived from Neptune or have never seen a movie shot in Paris, you will be aware that the River Seine is plagued with these crafts which load up dozens of tourists, swirl them around the river for about an hour so they can "see the sights" of central Paris (most of which the tourist have already seen from the ground), and then try to sell them pictures of their "romantic trip".

We took such a trip about two years ago on a frosty winter night. We were in Paris that December (for reasons that will be the subject matter of another blog entry) and noticing that the expiration date on the tickets was about due (Why we had bateau mouche tickets a year old is yet more subject matter for a blog entry), we decided to ride the romantic waves and listen to Yves Montand sing "Sous le ciel de Paris s'envole une chanson hum hum). Hum, indeed!

Anyway, there we were, skimming along the Seine, shivering but happy at sight of the lights glittering on the dark water, looking up at Notre Dame lit up and beautiful, the Eiffel Tower bright as a Christmas tree, etc. and old Yves humming away in the background.

Fast forward two years later to the present:

My wife: "Oh, here are the tickets to that boat ride we took. I'm going to throw them away."

Me reading a newspaper: "Oh, yeah, that was a nice boat ride."

My wife: "Well, I am surprised you say so. You didn't show much enthusiasm when we took it."

If this were a film, I would "stop action" the scene at that moment and have a voice over say: "My wife always accuses me of a lack of "enthusiasm" for anything. Be it a bowl of soup, or the sight of leaves on a tree in the spring, if I do not do cartwheels and shout for joy at the first spoon full of soup or the sight of the new green leaves, that proves I have no "enthusiasm" for the matter at hand and are thus indifferent to them. The fact of the matter is, I am past the cartwheel age and I have never been much of a cheer leader for anything. Hence, my appreciation for a soup consists of asking for a second bowl, and I would only shout for joy at the sight of new leaves if I were a herbivorous monkey."

But, my life is far from being a film so reason prevailed and I just quietly said:

Me: "That's not true. I did like that boat ride. I even sang along with Yves Montand."

My wife: "And it was so cold! You didn't even put your arm around me."

Me carefully choosing my words: "Again, you misremember: The fact that you are alive now proves I did put my arm around you, otherwise you would have frozen to death."

It is pointless to narrate the rest of the conversation because it went downhill from there, as they say. The gist of the conclusion was that I am an uncaring galumph who has as much enthusiasm for the romantic things in life as a dog has for the fleas that bite his, well, rear end.

My point in all of this is that women have not only a selective memory, they have a rewrite little woman inside their brains whose function seems to be to rewrite every scene from life to make us men seem uncaring, overbearing galumphs who are only enthusiastic about three things: eating, unbridled, unromantic sex, and football (or the sport of your choice).

Here is another scene from life as rewritten by the little woman inside my wife's brain:

Me, coming into the house sweaty from having washed the car in 36 degree heat: "Well, the car is looking clean again. Nice and..."

My wife: "Gray! Nice and gray. I hate that color. I don't know why we bought it that color."

Me: "Oh, its not that bad. I like it. It is.."

My wife: "Well, you weren't very enthusiastic about it when we were choosing colors."

Me: "What did you want me to do? Jump up and down and clap my hands like Boy George and say, 'Oh, goody it's is a lovely gray!'"

My wife: "No, but you could have shown some enthusiasm."

Me, cracking open a cold beer: "How the hell do you show enthusiasm for GRAY! It is GRAY, for God's sake! Haven't you ever heard the expression, 'Oh, what a gray day!' or 'That man is soooo gray!', People don't say those things with enthusiasm."

Again, needles to say, that conversation did not end in an enthusiastic agreement from my wife that my examples were called for.

I have often wondered why Nature programmed this into women's brains. There must be some sort of biological advantage to it. Maybe the cave women who exhibited this behavior bred better and stronger children, and got better food and care, because imagine this scene:

A cave man coming into the cave carrying the leg of a wooly mammoth: "Whew, that was a long haul. And this damned mammoth was a bitch to kill. It took three spears and..."

Cave woman: "I see that your fur coat is stained with blood."

Cave man: "Well, yes, I was sticking the spear into the damned things when I..."

Cave woman: "You can just throw it away. You don't seem to much care for it anyway."

Cave man: "Where did you get that idea. I love this fur coat and it matches my grass sandals perfectly. I said to Ugh, the other day that..."

Cave woman: "Well, you didn't show much enthusiasm when I made if for you."

Cave man: "What are you talking about. I said I love the thing. Look, I'll go down to the stream and wash the blood off. It'll come off, I swear it."

The cave man drops the leg of mammoth and goes down to the stream where a huge heard of bison is watering.

Cave man: "Holy sh***! Look at the size of those babies." Taking his trusty speak he lunges at the biggest one.

Back at the cave, the cave woman in sewing yet another fur coat for Ooogh, the cave man. He walks in with a huge side of bison.

Cave man: "Man, you should have seen the amount of food on the hoof there was by the stream."

Cave woman: "Oh, really? I saw them there this morning. I would have thought they would have gone by now. But, thank goodness because now we will have meat for the coming winter and for little Ooogh who eats like a horse, or rather, like his father. Just put the meat outside; the cold will keep it from spoiling."

Little Ooogh comes in running and tears a rib from the side of bison that dad is carrying outside. As cave boy starts to gnaw on it, there is a smile of smug satisfaction on the cave woman's face..