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Oct
27
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There I was, minding my own business, eating my bon bons, and pinning my every emotion on the outcome of the soon-to-end eBay auction that I was obsessively refreshing, when the phone rang.
It was a distraught customer. She’d spoken with my husband earlier that morning. By the time I hung up the phone, the air was clear and the customer was happy.
I called my husband and explained the situation. “What did you say to make her think these things?”
“I have no idea!” He responded, bewildered. “But I know I never said anything like that to her.”
“Well, obviously you said something, or implied it at least. She didn’t pull this of thin air.” I tried to get past the frustration. “Tell me exactly what you said to her.”
“I explained our process, and told her about any potential issues that might come up during the manufacturing phase. That’s all! I swear!”
Noticing with annoyance that I’d just missed out on the pretty, autographed Jimmy Buffett guitar (I haven’t played since I was 12, but that’s not important), I got to thinking.
He’s not just a man, he’s also an engineer. He really doesn’t understand how women think.
“Did she happen to say some things that you ignored or didn’t deny?” I asked, cautiously.
“Of course. If I corrected every wrong thing that people said to me, I wouldn’t have time to breathe.” Whacking my head against the wall helped dull the pain.
Irritated, I cut the conversation short. “You’re not allowed to talk to female customers anymore. Ever.”
It occurred to me that engineers have yet to develop a way to translate Man into Woman and have it be consistently effective.
Is this a basic lack of foresight? An intentionally stubborn refusal to compromise? Could it be the missing leg of that second X chromosome? Did it never occur to them that there’s a problem?
There’s this huge, open space that needs to be filled to close the communication gap between men and women. Unfortunately, no one’s developed a way to translate Man Talk into Woman Talk and have it be consistently effective.
You’d think that with so many men like him, drifting along, cluelessly managing to make some woman angry, that at least one of them would have developed a translation device by now.
Instead, they flail around in the dark hoping to hit enough of the right communication buttons to keep peace and harmony. Then they go back to playing the latest version of Radioactive Mutant Cannibals, munching Doritos, and swilling two-liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew in the basement.
Some enterprising, young engineer isn’t going to be motivated to do this; it’ll have to be an old engineer. One whose significant other is sporting bruised toes from kicking him in the ankles every time he opens his mouth. Maybe a woman will invent the Man Talk Translator instead.
Despite my nagging, it’s been nearly two years since the outside faucet for the garden hose was functional, so I’m not holding out much hope for a speedy resolution to this issue.
In the meantime, my husband is banned from all future communications with customers, particularly female ones, until further notice.
Also, he left a banana peel next to the bed; I’m being dive-bombed by little flies. Apparently, he needs to learn to communicate with the trash can as well.
