Monday, December 21, 2009

Stating the Oblivious

I like to think I'm fairly observant.

I mean, not in the spotting-flowers-on-an-otherwise-empty-table sort of way because I'm a man and we are genetically prone to having to ask a passing female for stuff like that.

And the girls moan, don't they?

"It's right HERE." they squeak, whacking you across the head with the item you've been struggling to see for the last five minutes. they don't look at it from our perspective.

It's a bit of bother see, when you need something out of a cupboard and you know it's there, but you just can't find it. You look harder. Your head starts to resemble a nodding dog on the back of a dodgem car, you suck your teeth or purse your lips to one side of your mouth, which is a sure fire way of increasing your observational abilities, and yet still nothing. Finding things is hard.

The lady, if she's not tutting in a smugly superior way, might tell you that you're looking too
hard, which explains everything really. From now on, I will look softer. Or maybe easier.

I understand the frustration of girls though, as we can unwittingly contradict ourselves.

"How can you spot a glow-worm at twenty paces, in a hedge, in the daytime, yet have trouble seeing milk in a fridge?" is how the current Mrs The Jules put it.

It's a good point.

There is an evolutionary theory that purports to explain why lasses are better at spotting details like this than chaps. In pre-historic days (goes the idea) before the invention of . . . well, anything really, women would provide the bulk of the family diet through foraging, and thus developed keen senses of observational skills, which would've been vital for spotting certain types of edible plants amongst inedible ones, or where certain nutritious comestibles were hiding in confusingly tangled undergrowth.

Men, however (according to the theory) were on more of a stalkin', runnin', huntin' and killin' bent, and so developed slightly better senses of navigation and fun spatial awareness.

I believe it's called the "Where's My Bloody Keys?" theory of evolutionary development, and makes a certain kind of sense if one accepts the stereotypical archetypes of manly and womanly differences.

Personally, I think it's all about outdoors versus indoors. I'm fine at locating stuff if it's outside. There's only so many places a thing can be,which narrows the search criteria by a huge margin. Mostly, stuff outside is going to be on the ground. Occasionally in a tree. Sometimes in a stream. Three places really.

Inside, it could be anywhere. There's three dimensions and hidden cubbyholes, there's extra floors and lofts. There's boxes and drawers, cupboards and shelves, baskets and domestic appliances.

There's down the back of the sofa. A terrifying place of Biro skeletons and out-of-circulation currency, where crumbs have collected in such numbers that you could peel them off and have a perfect mold of your furniture.

In such circumstances, it takes the bizarrely organised mind of a female to figure out where stuff is, although I know for a fact that women occasionally cheat by remembering where they put something, and then going to that place when they need it again and just retrieving it.

That's not proper searching, is it?

Anyway, whilst rambling along a canal in recent days, we came across something that was noticeable to all of the genders, and which I thought blogworthy:

A sunken river cruiser.

For some reason, out of all the methods of transport, the sunken boat is the only one that elicits something approaching sadness in me.

Imagine a car in the same position. That would be unusual, and interesting, but not sad. How about a lorry? That would actually be exciting. An aeroplane would make the news. A scooter would be downright funny.

Maybe a wheelchair.

Mostly, a sunken machine is going to make you go "ooh" rather than "awww".

Not when a boat is involved though. It was once claimed that boats had souls, and that's why seafarers gave them names. Mind you, sailors have never been especially noted for their rational, lucid interpretation of the world so maybe we shouldn't take to much notice of anything they say, unless it's about wind. Or tides. Or weevils.

They did mistake Dugongs for mermaids, after all, and I'd have to be mad, drunk or both to do that.

Again.

Still, not even the hilariously upright buoys can prevent a certain sense of melancholy creeping into one's perception of this picture.

I wonder if the owner knows about it yet, and whether it'll be a write-off, or are cruisers waterproof on the inside as well as the outside? Maybe it's not as bad as it seems, and is just like a spot of rising damp that a towel and dehumidifier will sort out.

Later, whilst driving around my home town, I decided to notice something else. This time, I noticed a thing that was as bad as it seemed:

Apparently, a stretched Humvie isn't tasteful or noticeable enough for the residents of this estate, so they have rectified it with an understated paint job.

I live in a country where the majority of minor roads still follow the old cattle and sheep trails of the middle ages, so this makes perfect sense for the corners. Still, it's not there for practical use, as it's primary function will be for the transportation of slappers.

Now, I wouldn't mind seeing that go haring into a river at full tilt, especially off of a right big ramp.

21 comments:

  1. a bright flash of pink, and then a multitude of bubbles.

    yeah.
    i think that would be blogworthy
    and funny.
    my capacity for feeling sorry for somone stops around the pink stretch-hummer spot.

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  2. Hi The Jules,

    A pink stretch Hummer? What is attention-grabbing?

    Please write a white paper on Internal/External Search and Find Distinctions of Men and Women.

    U

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  3. I've just had to adjust the post options so this post pops up at the top. Blogger uses the US date version (mm/dd/yy) rather than the one everybody else uses, and this confused me.

    justsomethoughts - True, although I might feel sorry for the girl who's mates hired the damn thing for.

    U - I'm now picturing you driving a gold convertible one with spinny hubcaps and listening to Fiddy, maybe whilst wearing a very large floppy hat with a feather in it. And I like it.

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  4. I'm pretty sure women hide things just so they can produce it at the opportune moment and rub it in our faces...how exactly they manage to hide things thoroughly, right where we expected to find them is one of those 'female magic' things. Like when they go to the toilet in groups... 'to powder their noses' YEAH RIGHT!!

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  5. Didn't that car belong to The Village People's fan club? It could be a collector's item.

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  6. the MITM calls it his hunter's eye and my ability to find things in the house is the all knowing womb yes, we're strange like that. i guess that explains why our 4 children live on the opposite coast! :~D xoxoxox

    (happy christmas, sugarpie! xooxox)

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  7. Tempo - Women are ethereal, magical creatures, like the Fey and tapirs.

    GB - Wish I'd put YMCA as it's number plate now.

    Savvy - lol, that's great. Happy christmas to you too! x

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  8. "Slappers"? Are those like "chavs"? Because here in the good ol' US of A, stretch humvees transport only the most modest and demure of strippers and wedding parties.

    And I concur re: the sadness of a boat taking on water. Not to mention that I can't help but envision that scene in "Jaws" at night, when they find the half-sunken boat... Ack. Still gives me the willies.

    Pearl

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  9. I love the pink stretch hummer! You wouldn't happen to know where I could find one of those? Maybe you should go ask the Mrs.!

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  10. I remember from my days back in the US Navy that ships (and probably boats) certainly did have souls.

    Or was that soul-sucking?

    I never get that straight...

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  11. Jules, absolutely bloody brilliant as we have come to expect; went downhill a bit with the gay hummer, but you redeemed yourself with the ramp remark.

    AV

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  12. circus monkey - Heart-rending, innit?

    pearl - Slappers are ladies of questionable virtue, who shame themselves and their gender by inexcusably having the same libido as men. Chavs are just chavs. Also, when I saw that head pop out of the boat in Jaws, I fell off the sofa, so I concur!

    thinkinfyou - You could probably pull it off, without being a slapper. Unless you wanted to, of course.

    SkylersDad - Did you ever diddle a dugong? Does diddling dugongs demonstrate dodgy doings?

    AV - lol. I hate constructive criticism, but that was great!

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  13. For the boat, I wonder if they tied it off at low tide? I hope that's not bad slang for anything in the UK.

    Once I worked for the parent company of Chilis while they were opening restaurants in the UK. On the menu was a turkey sandwich which in the US was dubbed 'The Gobbler Deluxe'. Apparently, people who read the menu in London thought it was the entertainment value of the year.

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  14. Oh I'm total opposite...I can never find anything...! It's hubby who comes to my rescue every damn time...unless it's my own stuff though. I remember where I put things away. But on a few occasions it slips me and it's hubby who'll find it...

    I know I'll suck at treasure hunting! Ugghhh...

    I prefer black stretch hummer to pink or white ones...black screeches class while pink shouts 'cheap'! As much as I love pink there are some things that should stay off that color...like a pink car...yikes...or a bedroom fully decorated in pink...pink walls, pink furniture, pink curtains, pink doors/windows, pink decorations...what the hell...!

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  15. stretch ANYTHING = "LOOK AT ME!!!! MEEE!" tasteful? Not so much.

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  16. Look, my palanquin broke down, and I had to get around somehow.

    Just kidding, that thing is pretty horrendous. Luckily I suspect it only gets about a mile out of a full tank.

    As far as the male inability to find things, it reminded me of my dad when his current wife first moved in with him - "She keeps HIDING things from me!" "No Dad, she's just putting them away."

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  17. You forgot syphilis. Pay attention to whatever sailors have to say about syphilis.

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  18. Eric - Possibly, alhtough the railings didn't have that characteristic bent look about them. And I'd pay extra for a gobbler deluxe.

    P.T - Agreed (and welcome, BTW)on the pink. I have two beautiful nieces who are obsessed with pink. Their bedroom is like a giant womb. Gives you a migraine if they choose their own clothes.

    Ellie - And yet they're so common these days that no-one looks anymore.

    Soda and Candy - Ha, your Dad's right. That IS hiding them. And for a palanquin to break down, doesn't that mean one of your bearers is dead?

    Just.Kate - Good point. Credit where credit's due.

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  19. Yes, and do you know how much those things cost???

    ; )

    w/v: uncesty - eeeeuuuuwwwwww.

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  20. Weirdly, 'slappers' I understood, but what's a 'chav'?

    That Hummer is horrifying.

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