This is is a story many husbands will vouchsafe for: you have just taken your wife out for a night on the town, palmed the maitre-de a fiver for a good seat, the waiter for great service and paid a bomb for the meal. And then you take a taxi to go home but the driver takes a wrong turn, or has a slightly malfunctioning meter, or whatever but the meter shows about twenty five cents more than what you are normally used to. And this leads to an argument about why you should not pay him any more -and this after you have spent over a hundred dollars for the evening!
" Its only a few cents", you argue. " after all you just paid the waiter over twenty dollars in tips."
"No, that is different", counters your wife, "This is a matter of principle!". Really?
Since I found that this obsession with accuracy in taxi fares widespread among all the wives of my friends, I decided that it was worth examining the underlying rationale for this perplexing mania. To begin with let us admit that all of us have some blindspots or some areas where, after a while, all rational discussion becomes moot. It is what I call the moment when you state your position and, you say like most mothers, " because I say so" and turn a deaf ear to any further pleas and entreaties. These may vary from discussions about political parties or candidates abilities, or the foibles of public personalities or certain customs and traditions. After you have exhausted all your stock of explanations and basically run out of patience explaining your point of view, you essentially shut up shop and say "enough".
Unfortunately for most women, taxi drivers are univerasally the objects of this "lakshman rekha" of tolerance. They seem to be all convinced that taxi drivers are sent on this earth to take a longer route to the destination or have a malfunctioning meter, so that the fare is always slightly greater than it should ideally be. And denying them that extra dime thus becomes their life's main objective. And no amount of rational discussion or data is going to dissuade them. Believe me I've tried. So poor taxi drivers be resigned to your fate as we all husbands have.
" Its only a few cents", you argue. " after all you just paid the waiter over twenty dollars in tips."
"No, that is different", counters your wife, "This is a matter of principle!". Really?
Since I found that this obsession with accuracy in taxi fares widespread among all the wives of my friends, I decided that it was worth examining the underlying rationale for this perplexing mania. To begin with let us admit that all of us have some blindspots or some areas where, after a while, all rational discussion becomes moot. It is what I call the moment when you state your position and, you say like most mothers, " because I say so" and turn a deaf ear to any further pleas and entreaties. These may vary from discussions about political parties or candidates abilities, or the foibles of public personalities or certain customs and traditions. After you have exhausted all your stock of explanations and basically run out of patience explaining your point of view, you essentially shut up shop and say "enough".
Unfortunately for most women, taxi drivers are univerasally the objects of this "lakshman rekha" of tolerance. They seem to be all convinced that taxi drivers are sent on this earth to take a longer route to the destination or have a malfunctioning meter, so that the fare is always slightly greater than it should ideally be. And denying them that extra dime thus becomes their life's main objective. And no amount of rational discussion or data is going to dissuade them. Believe me I've tried. So poor taxi drivers be resigned to your fate as we all husbands have.
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