SIX WOMEN EQUALS TWO PIZZA

On the bus this morning a delicate young thing got up for me.
I guess that officially makes me “old”. Possibly even ‘frail’.
Having a teenage girl carrying heavy textbooks relinquishing her seat is rather embarrassing. Especially as I had let her and other persons of the female gender board first.
Before I could demur, she had scooted back to the front of the bus.
Fortunately another young woman got on at the next block, and I rose.

I’ve always been somewhat irritated at the failure of many men to yield their seats to women. It is good and proper to do so – vehicular traffic shouldn’t move an inch until every sheila is sitting down, boys – and age really isn’t the determinant.
Fifteen year old girl versus fifty three year old Dutch-American?
Miss, please sit.
I must insist.


Over the years I’ve become more flexible, however.
Not everybody has the same set of social rules in their head.

One cannot persuade a well-brought-up Cantonese teenager that she should remain seated, when all of her past experience screams that the fragile old dude deserves to recline. Even if said rickety fossil is actually full of piss and vinegar, and in the prime of health. Second adolescence, in fact. Never felt more boyish. That salt and pepper in my beard, and the tinges of grey on top, are all in your imagination.
Either that or a stylish and ironic Indira Gandhi-esque personal statement.
Rather like the tattoos young white people wear, but much better.
This blogger is the very picture of lithe vibrancy.
Not a single part of me creaks or aches.
I can stand, really, it’s okay.
Do not get up.


But.

Brick walls, unbendable convictions, and stubbornly immovable objects; whatever the outcome, one of the two individuals involved will end up with a disquieting and uncomfortable feeling that things just aren't right. 



Her rigid conditioning versus my rigid conditioning.

It is correct to yield to the fairer sex.

And by the way: I am not old.



AFTERWORD

The title of this post was what Pizza Man muttered as he left the building.
It is the most algebraic thing I’ve heard him say.
A sure sign of a flexible mind.
Or mere synapses.

Brain cheese


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