Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Uterus as Tracking Device

One of the funniest comedy routines Roseanne Barr does is about how husbands and kids think moms know where everything is. "Honey, have you seen my crescent wrench?" "Mom, where' s my backpack?" As if a uterus is also a tracking device.

Recently at work one of my coworkers received a frantic call from her 11 year old daughter, "Where are my swim goggles?" My friend tried to talk her daughter through the problem to help her find the goggles, finally hung up the phone. Then she told me her husband was home with her daughter.

I recounted my experience: when I was driving to Texas in a dense thunderstorm after learning that my mother had had a stroke, my 15-year-old son called me on my cell phone, "Where's my gameboy??" he demanded. For some reason he thought I had his gameboy with me, maybe he'd left it in the car, and seriously expected that I would turn around and come back to return it.

Meanwhile, while I'm telling my coworker about this incident, the phone rings again, and another coworker answers it and begins talking to her frantic young son, "I don't know where it is," she tells him, "where did you see it last?" Her husband, by the way, is also home with the child.

Apparently dads don't have tracking devices embedded in their bodies.

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