Prairie Spy

by Linda, Alan

  But have a woman come up to you and say, “You’re probably not going to like this,” and now what have you got? Absolutely nothing. No guy walks into a bar and proudly boasts: “Some woman just talked to me and scared me so bad that I almost peed my britches.” Nothing.

  So here, ladies. Here’s an example situation you might find yourselves in and if you do, what you say to the significant male other in your life, assuming, that is, that your main goal at that moment in time isn’t to give him a coronary or a sudden heart stoppage.

  Through no fault of your own, you told the neighbor, “Sure, it’s fine. He won’t mind if you use his tractor.” Later, the neighbor calls and tells you that there’s something wrong with the tractor and as soon as it’s pulled out of the lake he’ll let you know.

  Your husband-significant other comes in the door, home from work. You say: “I’ll buy you a new tractor I loaned yours to the neighbor I’m so stupid I love you whip me beat me make me write bad checks.”

  Try it.

  But not, “You’re probably not going to like this.”

  §

  Women: Sensitivity Award at the Library

  The pretty young woman at the library handed me back the book I was checking out. She had affixed a sticky note to it, which said: “DO NOT DESENSITIZE.”

  Do not desensitize? Being as how I’m a male raised by a female, trained by a Tribe of Girls, cautioned for years about sexual bigotry in the workplace, and in general afraid to be in a room full of women for fear of drowning in a sea of estrogen, it caught my eye.

  I’m afraid of drowning. Do not desensitize? I thought quickly, frantically. Was this a prank? I looked at the door, my way out. I glanced at the librarian, as she went to help another patron. Nope. She didn’t seem unduly involved, as she would have been had she said to someone, likely another female: “Now, watch this. I’m going to give the next guy who comes in a sticker that says “Do not desensitize” and see what happens.”

  Had this been the case, they’d have been over in the corner enjoying my discomfiture. Which they weren’t.

  Does this warning mean that I’m too sensitive? That, finally, after a lifetime of women accusing me of, among other things, being not sensitive to their whims and wishes, they’ve recognized my advances in this field? That, maybe, at the last meeting of The Tribe of Girls, someone stood up and made the motion: “He’s been doing real good at reading our minds and remembering birthdays, let’s give him a sticker.”

  All in favor, etc., etc., and although I picture the vote as close, I eked one out.

  Lord knows, I’ve had my trouble figuring out what women want. For example, once, some women friends visited and stayed the night. Just before bedtime, one of them said: “I see that living out in the country poses a lot of wildlife issues.”

  Oh, yes, I said, it certainly does, blithely babbling on about foxes and eagles and whatnot, all the while watching them become more and more uneasy as bedtime approached and they were to head for their assigned bedroom.

  Well, I watched them, but I didn’t see. I wrote all this off to their excitement at spending the night in the same house with someone as charming and sophisticated as me. This is a classic example of the old, un-sensitive me. I didn’t pick up on the looks exchanged between them, the little wordless communications that I now, being the winner of a desensitizer award, realize exist, but didn’t know about back then.

  It was six months later when one of them, in a telephone conversation, asked about my house being overrun with mice: “All those mousetraps all over the house,” she said, “we were afraid to go to bed.”

  Oh.

  Had I been the mind reader then that I am now, I would have intercepted these brain waves and replied: “Those are just to keep the cat from climbing in the flower pots.”

  I told her that. Silence on the other end. I’m going to guess, judging from that silence and my new-found higher sensitivity, that it wasn’t her that made the sensitivity award nomination.

  Really, though, I have been trying hard. Why, just the other day, when the young woman at the grocery store asked me: “Paper or plastic?”, I replied, “What would you like, please.” There, I thought to myself, that’s the new sensitive me in action.

  I guess she didn’t really know. Well, I know she didn’t know, or she wouldn’t have asked me to make up her mind for her. I just thought that she should have more say in the decision, which is what I told her. Then I said: “Life is just one big mousetrap, isn’t it?” Then I gave her my best most understanding look, and winked at her. Yes, I know, I wanted to tell her, making one’s own decisions are difficult, but I’m on your side.

  The cashier at the till, an older woman, suddenly looked ill. That happens, you know. It’s winter. One minute you feel well; the next, you’re coming down with something. The new sensitive me asked: “There’s a lot of stuff going around, isn’t there?”

  She gave me an understanding look. Boy, she sure agreed, apparently.

  Glad I could help, I wanted to tell her, but she seemed to know that already.

  I looked once again at the “DO NOT DESENSITIZE” sticker. Then at the librarian. I got her attention, and asked her: “Is this for me?”

  “Well,” she replied, “kind of. Otherwise, you’ll set off the alarm when you leave.”

  I waved at her. “Thank you very much.” She seemed confused.

  Well. I had no idea. Technology has progressed to the point at which they are measuring sensitivity.

  “Good luck,” I said to the guy just entering as I was leaving.

  He’d need it.

  §

  Women: We Need to Talk

  Perhaps I was wrong some time ago when I speculated that the worst words a guy can hear at the beginning of a conversation with a woman are for her to say: “I’ve got bad news.” In fact, I’ve changed my mind; they’re not the worst at all. They’re bad, but the worst—the ones that really that strike abject fear into the male heart, are: “We need to talk.”

  Except for a couple of examples and some narrative to flesh all this out, most guys will agree with me that this subject really doesn’t need much more discussion; that this is all they want to hear about it, let’s go clean manure out of the calf pen or get that root canal taken care off—something more fun.

  “I’ve got bad news” does in fact seem to be the standard conversation opening gambit employed by anyone possessing one or more ovaries. The first thought that pops up here is: Do they use this on one another, woman to woman? Or is this particular little combination of words solely used with males, through some mistaken belief that it shows a certain respectful trepidation of mechanical things? Kind of an I-don’t-know-what-the-big-deal-is-but-I’m-cool-with-machines feeling. That’s usually where it’s used, as in: “I’ve got bad news, the red light is on in the car.”

  Him: Well, dear, maybe it isn’t so bad. (His guts are twisting up into knots. It’s bad. Other Guys will make fun of him.) How long has it been on?

  Not too long, maybe since the girls and I went to Fargo last week? Is that long?

  Well, dear, maybe not. (Omigod since Fargo. That crankshaft will be scrap.)

  Her: I don’t see why we need a red light to tell us to put windshield washer fluid in anyway.

  IT”S THE WINDSHIELD WASHER FLUID LIGHT? NOT THE OIL LIGHT?

  Uh huh. Why? Does that matter?

  There you have it, the typical conversation with a woman that has opened with the “I’ve got bad news” warning. One really has to think they’re just trying to connect, even though they don’t have a clue how terrifying are the results of mechanical malfeasance to a male. They want to be perceived as sympathetically involved in this world of machinery and moving parts. (Mechanical malfeasance means ignoring the messages from The Machine Gods, messages that often come in forms as varied and inco
mprehensible as a good Evangelist speaking in tongues. Knocking, whistling, squeaking, rattling, squealing, and just generally altered behavior are the conventional means by which The Message comes that your car, your furnace, your snow mobile, etc., is about to poop the big one.)

  Women don’t generally acknowledge these messages. They rely instead on faith and patience with The Machine Gods; that those squeaks and vibrations are mere tests of faith, and mean nothing more; that if women as machine operators are patient and nurturing, the knocks and shakes won’t get worse.

  “I’ve got bad news,” therefore, mostly involves things with two or more moving parts.

  Which brings us to what appear to be the really terrifying words with which women open up conversations with men: “We need to talk.”

  Boys, one thing is for certain: Any conversation with a member of the opposite sex that begins with those words is not going to pertain to machinery. Nope. It’s going to involve a long and torturous discussion of stuff regarding COMMUNICATION, and RELATIONSHIP, and YOUR SHORTCOMINGS thereof.

  An example is in order:

  Her: We have to talk.

  Him: AAAIIIIEEEEEGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!! (The screams fade as this particular guy runs off into the local cave, or the local bar, whichever is closest, a bar being the closest thing to a cave that we have since dark and deep caves went out of fashion.)

  Let’s try again: Her: We have to talk.

  Him: What did I do now? (Sound familiar? Conversations that women begin with WHTT ( We have to talk) never involve a woman’s shortcomings. Just his. Just to prove this:

  Her: WHTT.

  Him: Uh huh. What about?

  Her: I made a mistake and I’m sorry. I’ll be your slave forever.

  Yeah, right! That ain’t gonna happen, see what I mean.

  Here’s what is gonna happen. Her: WHTT.

  Him: Ooookkkaaayyyy. (He’s looking out the window for an escape route.)

  Her: You remember Ann, the lady I introduced you to in church the other day? She just moved back to town?

  Him. Hmmmm. (Keeping it noncommittal, until he can see which way the wind blows.)

  Her. You never mentioned that you two went steady back in high school?

  Him. (This is over. Maybe a quick bluff.) I didn’t think it was important. (Guys, it really isn’t, is it? To us. Really. Honest. Hardly remember those sessions under the football bleachers.)

  Her. Wipe that silly look off your face. You’re in big trouble here, mister. (She begins to cry. Oh, man. That’s really cheating. You never follow WHTT with tears. WHTT always involves an argument, followed by two days of the silent treatment, and a slow glacier-paced thawing.)

  Him. (Thinking fast, as the eternal instinct for survival kicks in.) She hates you, you know.

  Her. (Momentarily distracted.) Why?

  Him. Because you’re thinner and better looking than she is.

  This one is over. This guy remembered the magic words. But next time, he won’t be so lucky.

  Neither will you.

  §

  Women: Grocery Stores, and Asking for Directions

  I usually do my grocery shopping as late at night as possible. There are a couple of reasons why: First, it’s because of the aisles and poky, contemplative women who pause in front of the canned peas and study first the shelves and then several individual cans—each of which contain the apparent same thing, little round green vegetables. It’s as though they were going to live forever and the fate of the known world depended upon their pea decision.

  As I race up to these veggie worshippers in once again a failed bid to enter and leave the grocery store in a best personal time, I skid to a stop before them and take three milliseconds—other men are besting my time, you realize—to ponder their beatific facial expressions.

  Does God live in the vegetable aisle? Oh, boy, what if he does, and I’m skipping on by Him because I think he lives in church, which is where most of us go to look for him.

  Once, in a fit of participatory yearning, I too took a can of peas and beheld it, waiting for grace or lightning, or at least a peaceful interlude. The pea stack on the shelf collapsed and several cans crashed to the floor. The resulting chaos around me and my cart drew some let me tell you not very pleasant looks from the other pea worshippers. I fled, back the direction from which I came, and darted down the next aisle, which was full of soaps and detergents, a much more likely aisle, right? for Him.

  Even at nine at night, some of the aisles are plugged with studious shoppers. Nonetheless, there are not as many, and if I’m going to set the world speed shopping record per item purchased, that’s when it’s going to happen, which is reason number two for being there at that time of night.

  There I was, rolling through the store my smooth grab and snatch technique, the cart barely pausing while I filled it.

  I noticed two young women more than once.

  More than once needs some clarification, as does young women. First, at this point of my age, more women are young. That’s kind of a neat thing, kind of, although I mention it at the risk of you getting the wrong idea about me having any kind of perverted regard for that younger segment of women. Let me say that it is an observation made merely from a neutral, viewer-based, scientific point of view, based on the fact that once, when I was, say, 16, there were not so many younger women around, like, hardly any.

  Now there are. Enough said. One of the younger women was accompanied obviously by her daughter, who was younger yet, in the twenty-something bracket. I noticed them because one does not that often find mother-daughter shopping pairs in this age combination. I noticed them even further because as often as not, mom would pick something off the shelf, and, along with both of them contemplating it as though it were a diamond bracelet they had just discovered, now they were also discussing it. The first couple of times I made a high-speed 180-degree turn necessary to compete in this shopping race, they were down that aisle, and I had to veer over to the next one.

  But they were in every aisle, and eventually, I accumulated a lot of—for one moving at this rate—observation time. After they discussed it at length, quite often the daughter would put the item back on the shelf, and drag the shopping cart away, leaving mom no choice but to come along. Ah, how roles change, eh? Not that long ago, it was the mom putting stuff back, and the little daughter hurrying after her.

  I skidded around the cereal corner, saw that although they were in front of me, there was room to pass by. As I was passing by, the daughter turned to me and asked: “Do you know where the jars are?”

  Her mom—whom I knew from somewhere—said: “But he doesn’t work here.”

  The daughter said: “I know, but he looked like he knew what he was doing.”

  ????????????

  Really? Honest? No! Me?

  I stopped, said hello, then said to the daughter: “Thank you. I think you’ve just scored a first for me, any woman, any time, any where, telling me I knew what I was doing.”

  I wanted to pull the mom aside and lecture her a bit about her falling short in educating her daughter in The Tribe of Girls protocol about all this, but I didn’t. Instead, I said to the young woman: “Look. You have to know that if you’re going to go through life thinking that at any time a man knows what he’s doing, and actually telling him that, you’ve got a lot of heartache ahead of you.”

  Of course, I was smiling. I sped off, turned around after a few steps and said to her: “Thank you.”

  I was checking out, asked the clerk where the jars were just as the younger women were turning my end of another aisle, and told them what I was just told.

  A man asking for directions is not normal. A woman? Normal.

  A woman asking a man for directions?

  Bless you, younger woman.

  §

  Chapter 3 />
  Language

  English Language

  Honeymoon

  Raining Cats and Dogs

  Ring Around the Rosie

  English: There’s Absolutely No

  Getting Around It

  English: Hooker and Colonel

  Finnglish

  English Language

  Cut to the chase. Arm and a leg. Big wig. Crack a smile. Straight laced. We use these terms so casually that, as is often the case with the English language, we never even consider the origins of the phrases we often use.

  Cut to the chase of course came from the first talkie movies, which were often westerns. The sure recipe for success here, since no one was talking, and all the communication was done either by sub titles or a person standing in front of the stage using a megaphone, was to get to the part where the good guys mount their horses and chase the bad guys. Cutting was what was done to the film.

  Arm and a leg. Back in the days before photography, images of people could only be done as sculpture or painting. Just about everyone is familiar with those portraits of George Washington standing behind his desk, one arm behind his back. Others of him showed one hand in his coat. Still others showed all of his arms and legs. Prices charged by portrait painters back then were based on how many limbs were to be included in the portrait. Limbs of course are arms and legs, and were more difficult to paint than coats and shirts; therefore, they cost more. Hence the origin of the expression: “It’ll cost you an arm and a leg.”

  Big wig. Back in the sixteenth century, people commonly bathed only a couple of times a year—just before winter; just after. Women often kept their hair covered, as was the style, with hats and scarves, but men—because of lice and a general disregard for style—shaved their heads. Privileged men wore wigs, as only the wealthy could afford wigs constructed of wool, which, because it was un-washable, presented a problem, To solve this, they carved a loaf of bread the size of their head, put it inside the wig, and baked the whole thing in an oven. The heat, and I suppose the moisture from the bread, would fluff the wig up nice and big. Hence, this is the origin of the expression: “He’s a big wig.”