This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Margaret Craigie
Trip Leader — Annette Litherland. Punter — Margaret Craigie. Daywalk - Really Cruisy Grade.
Men have certain characteristics that I find quite appealing. For example
- Men can read maps and women can’t. I am happy enough to accept this statement with good grace. Whatever the excuse may be - be it that the maps are printed upside-down, or whether they put less than useful information - such as where the Post Office is (who writes letters these days?) but not where the shoe shops are located, we ladies just aren't as adept as our wonderful male counterparts at finding our way about.
Christopher Columbus notwithstanding, of course.
- Women can drive, and men can’t. Ask anyone who has had to pay car insurance premiums.
- Give a man the above information; a set of car keys; a map; a wife (and 2.5 kids if you really want), and he will say “I'll drive, honey. You navigate.” Every time. Apparently, men are logical.
WHAT HE SAYS: ‘l'll drive, you navigate.”
WHAT SHE HEARS: “Ug. I am the Man. Therefore I will drive. You are the woman, therefore you will not drive. Ug.” (A fairly loud beating of the chest follows).
WHAT SHE THINKS:
In the following nano-second, she considers the following responses: a) Agreeing in the hope that Man will get her there safely, and that her navigational skills will not be required. Man will take all the credit for a task well done. If he mucks things up, she will get the blame because she can’t navigate. More specifically... the traffic piles up behind, cars honking their horns, kids crying in the back. Tensions rise. He absolutely will not ask anyone who actually CAN read a map how to get where he wants to be. An argument will develop, and it will be straight to the divorce courts.
b) Laughing and pointing out the obvious flaws in Man’s plan immediately. A blazing row ensues and it will be straight to the divorce courts.
c) Circumventing all the above by going straight to the divorce courts before saying anything to Man.
WHAT SHE SAYS:
Every time.
Fortunately, this is the stuff of fiction. However, I was trying to cope with reality - a beautiful, sunny June day at Airlie Beach, Great Barrier Reef.
My tramping companion Annette handed me the street map just obtained from the tourist information office. “You navigate,” she said. “Okay!” was my reply.
We ambled through the bustling tourist township to the quieter outer suburbs where construction of new housing was still underway. We pretended that the accompanying sounds of the workmen were of woodpeckers. This was a little more believable the greater the distance from the site. On one of the streets, we interrupted a skink in the middle of what was obviously a gourmet lunch of fresh house-fly. He definitely wasn’t going to part with it for anyone no matter how much he was paid and he scuttled off with his catch into the grasses, the fly’s legs still twitching in a rather disconcerting fashion.