Words of Wisdom

Youth is wasted on the young.

Thursday 16 April 2009

Gender Differences: Lesson 3: Easter Picnics

Girls:

Pore over cookbooks the day before and select delicious recipes for potato salad and meatloaf. Pack the car with blankets, chairs, hampers and chilled wine. Make arrangements to meet wonderful friends and bring beloved parents.

Notice a grassy spot overhung with willows and surrounded by other groups of happy picnickers with the additional bonus of available car parks. Grit your teeth as you are driven past this spot.

Set up blankets and chairs in a secluded location and proceed to lay out the delightful and varied efforts of your culinary labour. Serve your beloved family and share with wonderful friends. Sit back and enjoy a glass of wine on a perfect day (not too hot, not too cold) with delightful company and conversation, cute kids and a walk in the bush. Joyfully spot the occasional emu/rabbit/kangaroo/freight train or squirrel depending on your interest and level of delusion.

Boys:

Reluctantly agree to attend. Hide confusion and disappointment when you realise that Girls want to have a 'Tailgate Picnic Feast' (TM) rather than a barbie. Reluctantly place all items, determined by Girls to be essential, into the car. Pack all items you deem essential into the car.
Complain about the amount of stuff being transported.

Arrive at park. Drive past a grassy spot overhung with willows and surrounded by other groups of happy picnickers with the additional bonus of available car parks. Too many people. Fail to notice Girls' disappointment.

Locate a quiet, out of the way place with no other people around (in order that you can commune with nature) and ensure it has more prickles and high weeds than any other similar location. Unload essential items.Gratefully accept some namby pamby food from wife, wonder why there is v little meat in the meatloaf and commence bluetooth connection for next phase of the Great Ocean Challenge Thingy >:-(

Realise you cannot get an internet connection in this secluded, natural location.

Make hurried apologies and drive off in a cloud of dust 'looking for a high spot'; search fruitlessly for an hour; decide to go home and make the connection leaving family stranded in the National Park and carrying numbers of essential items in the car with you (eg tissues/handbags). Return an hour and a half later and wonder why the car is packed and everyone ready to leave within 10 minutes of your arrival.

Make sheepish apologies to Girls for three days afterwards.

7 comments:

Blueberry said...

boys... (sigh)
;)

Arizaphale said...

Karma will out however. He lost 30,000 places and went from a spot in the top 200!!! He has only managed to claw himself back up to 18,000th . I have no sympathy.

A Free Man said...

I'd like to point out that I don't fall in the boys camp for this particular post. Just saying. It's really just 'boy'.

Cut him some slack, he's invested a fair bit of time in his 'race'. ;)

SSG said...

lol, sometimes the smallest things are of uttmost importance to one person, and of no importance to another. Going through some of this with MrC at the moment. E.g. when i come home from work, I'd like him to say hello to me and not continue playing his vid game. he'd like me to come to the dinner table immediately and not in 5 mins when I finish doing what I'm doing. it's more about being able to tell the other what upsets us rather than the small things themselves. and we're having trouble, but both want to work on it...

Stacy said...

Oh dear. :( Sounds like the idyllic picnic you had planned did not go as well as expected. Perhaps he learned his lesson...maybe??

Unknown said...

can't live with 'em...can't, well you know!

sorry, i'm trying hard not to laugh at your Gender Differences series, but really - it is so true, and so funny!

Jill said...

:-( At least you were able to milk it for three days though. :-)