THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509070044
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
KERRY SAYS:
Pardon me, Dave, if I seem a bit more incoherent than usual. But I'm recovering from a hopelessly mangled weekend, engineered by two incredibly well-educated men.
How bad was was it? I would have preferred a few days with the Donner Party.
After almost eight years of marriage I actually allowed Steve and one of his old law school cronies to plan - and I use that verb very loosely - a weekend.
I know, I know, I deserve what I got.
Here's what happened: Steve's old roomie and his wife wanted to escape Washington with a weekend at the Beach. Great so far, they're really nice people.
Steve and Roomie cooked up the affair by telephone. That should have spelled trouble right away. By the time they were done, the whole deal was as stable as a Bosnian cease-fire.
Up to Friday morning, I didn't even know if Roomie and his wife would be staying with us. And, thanks to the guys' precision planning, they arrived in town Friday night but we didn't even see them until late Sunday afternoon.
Not that we didn't try.
A series of missed phone calls, faulty assumptions and miscommunication left us with a lost weekend where we not only saw precious little of our old friends, but spent a lot of time wondering what we were doing next.
When we finally did get together, Roomie's wife looked at me and said: ``Next time you and I need to arrange it.''
Amen.
You can call this an isolated case of impaired male planning if you like, Dave. But it's happened before and not just to me.
I read recent accounts of the Clintons' summer vacation to Wyoming and I recall Hillary moaning that Bill couldn't even get up a golf foursome on his own. She had to import a player to round out the group.
The guy has five fingers on each hand, Dave. Can't he count to four?
DAVE SAYS:
Kerry, there's a powerful new medicine in the stores, one that used to require a prescription. Tag-a-something. They say it's the best thing ever for gas. You ought to look into it. I'll chip in a few bucks.
Only gastric distress could cause you to let a couple of missed phone calls destroy your weekend, and then inflate it into an argument that ``men can't plan anything.''
Does the word ``D-Day'' ring a bell with you? Trans-Continental Railroad? How about the Apollo moon mission? Mass production through interchangeability of parts?
That last one may be a mouthful, but if guys like Sam Colt and Henry Ford hadn't thought it up and perfected it, you'd still be laundering your knickers on some rocks down by the river.
And, before your valves crack, I'll confess that men have screwed up a few plans, too: New Coke, the Nixon administration and Naugahyde furniture come to mind. And that's just using the letter N.
This is not a gender issue, Kerry. It's personal, individual. I've worked with women who could've schemed Bobby Fischer's pawns right out of their tiny little boxer shorts. And I've worked with women who could screw up a two-car funeral.
If women are such great natural planners, how come the World Conference on Women is being held in a country where women have all the status of a doorstop? Was Copenhagen booked up? Toronto too dull for y'all?
Beijing. Brilliant idea, Kerry. Let's hold the next one in Kabul.
If there is a gender difference here, it may be that guys don't get in a sweat over unimportant details. Take your ``ruined'' weekend. Was the exact hour that you got together so critical? And what if a couple of friends did spend the night? How much planning does it take to change the towels, fluff the pillows, and pour two extra glasses of orange juice in the morning?
If they're really friends, Kerry, that's all they'd ask of you. The rest of it's no big deal. Any guy could tell you that. MEMO: Kerry Dougherty can be reached at 446-2302, and via e-mail at
kerryd(at)infi.net. Dave Addis can be reached at 446-2588, and
addis(at)infi.net. by CNB