Adult Male Learning Disabilities

It has become apparent (after 36 years of marriage) that some men have learning disabilities that just never go away with age. For instance.....

1. He can spend hours and hours washing and cleaning the cars inside and out until they sparkle and shine, but he is unable to go to a Mexican restaurant and not glop salsa on the front of his clean shirt.

2. No matter how many times he is told that cooking food on a high temperature will burn it, he still says "I know how to cook".

3. In order to do a simple job like hanging some new mini-blinds, it takes 4 cups of coffee, two lengthy visits to the bathroom, pictures have to be drawn, measurements made, and two hours of head scratching are an absolute must. Why not do it my way? Eyeball it. Screw the brackets in place. Slide the blinds into the brackets and call it good.

4. After criss-crossing the United States many times by car, we have yet to see more than a fleeting glimpse of any roadside attractions or national parks. It is much more important to win the race and beat our land speed record from the last trip and arrive an hour earlier than before. Burma Shave signs are a blur.

5. No matter how long it has been since he has been around his family and their obnoxious behavior, as soon as he is once again in their presence he reverts back to eating like a hog, using improper English, and generally going against Darwin's theory of evolution. That is to say, he is held to higher standards at home than he is at his parent's house.

6. He is able to do intricate work on his job that has to be within a hair's breadth of measurement, but he cannot stand up and pee without it getting all over the rim of the toilet. No amount of gentle chiding, or out and out admonishment can get him to reach on over and get some toilet paper and just wipe up the rim and remove some of the errant spray.

7. Even though it has been proven on many occasions that he in fact does not know everything, he still acts as if he does, thus eliminating himself from the glorious joy of new discovery that the rest of us mere mortals experience.

8. It is generally noted (and resented) that when he is wrong his voice gets louder and he butts in more often until he is satisfied that he has completely derailed the conversation and made his point while completely ignoring that someone else may have made some valid points as well.

9. Some men can make cats and cars purr, but they have never mastered the art of how to be gentle with women, or how to keep from smashing the loaf while slicing fresh bread.

10. After spending a good hour or more sitting in the bathroom cogitating and doing the crossword in the newspaper, some men will spend only seconds washing their hands before wiping them on the clean towel before leaving the room. Advice to these men: Wet hands, apply soap, sing the Happy Birthday song in your head while you lather away from the running water, then rinse thoroughly and shake the excess water off your hands before drying them on the clean towel. If you have been puzzled by the dirt stains on your hand towels even though you are sure you washed your hands, perhaps you have not been doing it correctly. Refer back to #7 to understand why you have this problem.

11. Unless you have married a woman or have a partner who is approximately your same size and weight, it is probably a good rule of thumb to keep in mind that no matter how many years have gone by, she is not going to be able to walk as fast as you. Your legs are longer, you have more strength in them, and you have way more stamina. She can give birth to babies, run marathons alone, but some women just aren't built like men. Stop telling her she walks too slow.

12. Men can go hunting in the woods and bring home big game, but for some reason, if you get them in a department store with no visible doors or signs pointing north, they are always going to go in the opposite direction to find the way to the checkout stand. I blame the gizmos in the car parts department for some of this. There must be some aftermarket car thingy that throws off their sense of how to get out of the store. Maybe attaching GPS receivers on them as they enter the store is the solution? Come of think of it, Garmin would probably hack them to keep the poor twits going back to the car parts section. 

13. It is sad, but there seems to be a large herd of men with LDM (learning disabled male) syndrome. No doubt you have encountered one or two, or you are one. If you are one, now is the time to do a self-intervention and mend your ways. Clean up, wash up and hush up.

No men were harmed in the writing of this dissertation. Some egos were bruised, but as with most hard-shelled animals, no real harm was done. Besides, you and I both know that none of the advice will be taken anyway.