Of women and The Cougar

Wow.

Writer Charlotte Allen (not familiar with) pens a scathing column in the Washington Post on the stupidity of women.

No man could write something like this and expect to keep his job as Harvard University president:

What is it about us women? Why do we always fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily sentimental? Take a look at the New York Times bestseller list. At the top of the paperback nonfiction chart and pitched to an exclusively female readership is Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." Here's the book's autobiographical plot: Gilbert gets bored with her perfectly okay husband, so she has an affair behind his back. Then, when that doesn't pan out, she goes to Italy and gains 23 pounds forking pasta so she has to buy a whole new wardrobe, goes to India to meditate (that's the snooze part), and finally, at an Indonesian beach, finds fulfillment by -- get this -- picking up a Latin lover!

Even worse, she takes down Grey's Anatomy.

I think I speak for all married men when I say, "Of course I don't think women are dumber than men. Honey?"

Tho the column was funny to read. Allen briefly touches on the stupidity in men, namely the naturally induced stupidity, which has a reasonable source, and the "catastrophic stupidity."

That's the balancing part that allowed the piece to get by editors, I assume.

Most men are aware of their potential catastrophic stupidity. Most men -- except maybe the ever-so-earnest president of the coolest frat on campus back when you were in college.

...

Driving back from Big Bend Saturday on Interstate 20, I couldn't help but think of one of my episodes of catastrophic stupidity, which I now call The Cougar Incident.

With apologies to those who were expecting something completely different.

In 1999, the car I had was totalled after a collision with a drunk (uninsured, of course).

I was in some decent money at the time. So I went to the car lot, checked out some of the used vehicles, and ended up in the new section staring at the just-redesigned cougars. Love was in the air.

The stupidity reached its zenith about a year later: I was in my red, V-6 Cougar on I-20, going about 100 mph. I had no radar detector, but I did have about 10 cars following in my wake. It was dark, and I wasn't driving with my headlights so much as using the force. Every 10 minutes the pressure would get to me and I'd slow down to 90 and scream "AAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Then I'd push it back to 100. I once made the Dallas-to-Lubbock run in four hours.

After one year of ownership, I had three speeding tickets and a monthly insurance bill of $225.

I loaned the car to a guy who had some issues with medicines* of questionable legality, and in one day he managed to fire off the air bag and crack the windshield -- $2,000 of damage that I had to pay for.

I fought like a moron to hold on to that car, but I finally had to sell. By the time I handed the keys over, I was commuting from Hico to my job in Abilene because free was the only place I could afford. Didn't get completely out of debt until I got married.

Oh, the stupidity.

God I miss that car.

UPDATE: My wife, who is not terribly fond of the Post piece, says that the entire thing is satire, written so as to fold in on itself and eliminate its reason for being written. I'm thinking it's more tongue-in-cheek grousing that doesn't have to follow its own logic. We also had a strong disagreement on "zenith" vs. "nadir", which I lost. That is all.

*Tip: Don't do that.