Suspicions confirmed

I work at night, in midtown Manhattan.  Consequently, engineer -- who works days in New Jersey & commutes by car, thus having more shopping options -- agreed to buy flashlights, batteries, & if possible a battery-operated lantern yesterday, since a massive hurricane is en route.  A nice manly sort of errand, I thought, & one I couldn't run, my office building having plenty of law firms but no hardware stores at all, let alone any open all night.

Why should I be surprised to find out that engineer failed to do so?  "I went to Home Depot.  They were sold out." Well, what about the hardware store?  The Army-Navy store?  "Oh.  No."  You went to one store?  "Yes.  And they were sold out."  So you didn't go anywhere else to get emergency lighting?  And then the wail, "But I triiiiiied ... ."

I recall hearing in some past life -- pre-engineer, anyhow, or I'd never have believed it -- that men by nature persist, they problem-solve, they act.  This proves what I've suspected for ages:  World of Warcrap & similar video fantasies make testicles atrophy.  (Yes, of course he had time & energy enough last night for a few hours of gaming.)

While I suppose I shall have to grow a pair (no wonder I had a horrid nightmare in which I looked down to find that I'd developed chest hair) & go in search of flashlights during the day (after working the equivalent of six days in four, with about 12 or 13 hours sleep total since Monday, I did have other plans), this household owns exactly one working flashlight, mine: the small LED miner's light that I use to read at night, or when the compact fluorescent crudbulbs don't provide enough light.  I laid in a stock of batteries for it a couple of months back, too.

So if the New Masculinity (the sort that causes engineers to believe women should get all moist & grateful because, you know, they triiiiiied) means mission not accomplished ... surely the New Femininity means I don't have to share.  How very tempting.

Festina lente

The poodle is sixteen.  She is fading out too fast now; every day something more disappears: hearing, strength, eyesight, awareness, & even her fur on her sides & lower back (due to Cushing's, which an idiot vet assured me two years ago that she didn't have -- surprise, another vet this year finally recognized it as an atypical type that the standard blood test didn't catch, & wasn't it too bad they hadn't treated it back then when she was stronger: yes, now tell your partner in the practice, not me).  She gets an array of pills every day, like any other old lady; & like any other old lady, half of them deal with the side effects of the others, & none of them can be stopped, & still they are not enough.