Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Look Beyond Actions

Anybody who has a husband or a boyfriend or some other form of commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner, knows that anything he does to whatever you say has no distant connection with emotions and/or feelings. Every woman is born with a natural ability see through his actions but chooses to be patient and forgiving for the sake of peace and sanity. Here are some examples.

Men Psychology and their general understanding of "Women": They think that anything a woman utters has a "hidden" meaning which the male species has not evolved with enough sensory perceptions to understand (the latter part is ofcourse, true).

No matter what you say, your counter part (yes, that commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner) will not go by your face value, but rather try to find the "hidden" motive and act such stupidly that he will screw your happiness as well as his, in the process. Some such common scenarios are

When you say: How was your day honey?
What he thinks you mean: You want *him* to ask *you* how your day was?
How he handles it: Assuming, he is one of the 99% of men who neither wants to talk about his day nor wants to listen about his wife’s day, he switches to “rant mode”. The moment you ask the question, he starts off “It was the most godawful day anybody can ever have. I mean, I was trying to tweak the CPU frequency but the audio keeps crapping out”.

If you are one of 99% of normal human beings, you would have slept half way through.

When you say: Hey, you want to watch a movie tonight? Something light?
What he thinks you mean: You want to watch some tear-jerker chickflick
How he handles it: According to him, everything you say or do, is a "test". He uses his "brain" and thinks, if he whines about the movie, it will be paid back in kind when he wants to watch “Star Wars :The Clone Wars.” So he decides that the best way to handle it is to agree cheerfully to watch any movie you want. In fact, he offers to drive to the nearest DVD shop to get the movie. And on the way back, he sticks a scotch tape to the underside of the DVD and then he would get a chance to feign regret for a damaged DVD. (and you actually believe him and end up watching "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" together.

When you say: What should I wear for tonight’s party? The blue dress I wore last Sunday or the red dress the Sunday before?
What he thinks you mean: Nothing, now he is screwed. He thinks he is in a minefield. First of all he has no clue if you really have those dresses. And his corrupt mind thinks may be you are just "testing" his memory. Moreover, he has no clue what you wore last Sunday or the Sunday before. He thinks, if he makes one mistake then you are going to screw his evening with a "Do you even notice me any more” discussion.
How he handles it: The best way to handle it is by concentrating and remembering at least one dress you own. If he can think of one,he will just say, “Why not that long yellow number?” Adding “You look really good in that” will seal the deal for him. But what if he can’t absolutely remember at least one of the dresses you have? Then, he will simply excuse himself and run to your closet and find out!

When you say: Hey, I am going to the mall. Do you want me to you get you a shirt or something?
What he thinks you mean: He thinks he got a tough problem in his hands. If he said "yes" then obviously he is not going to like what you bought (wonder why we ever try). He can neither wear it nor return it (and stay married). At the same time he cant say "no" because he thinks then you will follow it up with a “What, you don’t like my taste?” discussion.
How he handles it: The best way to handle it is by saying, “Sure. The plain blue shirt I wear to work is pretty ruined anyway. Can you get me the exact same shirt?”

When you say: Oh, I LOVE these shoes! But they are just above our price range. *sigh*
What he thinks you mean: You want him to say, “Oh, you deserve them honey”
How he handles it: He can’t just give away an expensive pair of shoes without a good business proposition. So the way to counter it is by saying, “Oh, it’s not that expensive honey. That’s how much the Prince of Persia IV for PS3 costs!”

Look beyond the Words

Anybody who has a husband or a boyfriend or some other form of commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner, knows that anything he says has an ulterior motive. Every women is born with a natural ability see through the intentions but chooses to be patient and forgiving for the sake of peace and sanity . Just in case of doubt, here are some common scenarios and how to handle them.

When he says: Hey we should cook more balanced meals, with more vegetables and Omega3s
What it means: In a rare fit of inquisitiveness, he read a health article on CNN
How to handle it: Just ignore. It will pass in a few days.

When he says: I think the leaky faucet points to a deep rooted problem with how our plumbing is laid out and the net pressure of the water in the pipes.
What it means: He has no idea how to replace the faucet and is too proud to admit it.
How to handle it: Call a plumber and get it fixed. Search on Amazon for books with topic, “How not to turn every small thing in life into a macho pride thing”.

When he says: The engine is making rattling noises, let me see what’s going on under the hood
What it means: He wants you to believe that he knows what the hell is under the hood, even though the only thing he can name there is the dipstick.
How to handle it: Have pity and pretend to believe him. Just gently request him not to actually try to repair anything in there.

When he says: I prefer to watch unrated versions of movies because they show the true vision of the director
What it means: He knows unrated versions have more nudity
How to deal with it: Because he is not particularly interested in the nudity anyway, use the nude scenes as an opportunity to discuss the true vision of the director in the movie.

When he says: How does my shirt look?
What it means: Shirt is just a decoy to take your attention off the fact that he is wearing a jeans that has not been washed for two weeks!
How to handle it: Tell him he looks completely out of shape in what he is wearing. He will change the whole wardrobe immediately. In fact, he will do anything to look toned other than exercising.

When he says: This year, for anniversary gifts, let’s give each other something we both can use
What it means: He wants to give *you* the Play Station Personal *he* always wanted to buy
How to handle it: In the same spirit, gift him a nice pair of Gili Earrings

When he says: OH MY GOD! I can’t find anything in the house. My life is ruined. Why me? Why now?
What it means: He can’t find his towel
How to handle it: Remind him it’s exactly where he left it. On the carpet, next to his closet. Ask him if he knows what “Drama Queen” means.

When he says: Honey, I created a directory called, “Work Files” on the computer. Please don’t touch it. It has important information.
What it means: “C:\Work Files\January 2006\Sources\Examples\Documents\Junk” is where he stores the porn
How to deal with it: Being the software chick yourself, it’s not hard to write a program that replaces the contents of the directory with pictures of naked dudes every night. And if you dont wanna do that, replace it with pictures of anything you husband would loathe looking at.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Dont Waste Paper

This is what I keep telling my daughter. Don't Waste Paper. After all if we dont teach the next generation, then who will? But I was wrong... I was so wrong. Yesterday my daughter taught me, and not only me, her message should go everywhere - across the nation, across the world. And what better way than to BLOG about it?

Being a Sunday yesterday, we woke up late - well late by our standards, and pretty late by our elders' standards. Yes, we woke up at around 10 in the morning, and immediately we started fighting with the morning newspaper. We all had our agenda - my husband wanted to know about the nation and the owrld at large, my daughter has a "current affair" exam on Tuesday for which she had to keep her updated with the currents news, and I, well, err... actually, nothing specific - just the usual bollywoood gossip, fortune and the supplementary stuffs. But whatever, we started our fights and as is expected, my daughter won. So newspaper must go to her first. And the moment she took it in her hand, she came and told me, "Mumma, you keep telling me not to waster papre, but look here, Tropicana Juice has put an advertisement and wasted one and a half page of this newspaper"

Yes, she was right and I was shocked. Tropicana wasted one and a half page of The Sunday Times, 21st Dec'08 trying to stress the importance of having 100% of... whatever, thats not important. What is important is that the CORPORATE citizens of this nation and the owrld should realse the importance. Our kids learn from the elders - from the media and from everything around them, and if this is what they see, what will they learn (tried to find the image on line, but couldn't, but am sure many of you must have seen it).

So, M/s Tropicana, we know you guys provide us 100% juice and we are quite fond of you. Your advertisement of hald a page could not have demeaned you or your product by any amount. If you have lot of year-end budget for advertisement still unused, why dont you guys use them in some more meaningful ways than this?