Is it Men or is it Menopause?

I was sent to Lowe's this morning to purchase a shower head for the new shower. This small errand turned into a nightmare of freakish proportion, simply because Jerry and I don't always speak the same language. Sometimes he speaks english, sometimes he speaks manglish. Manglish is where you mangle the english you are trying to communicate with. This is what men do when they are trying to explain plumbing and auto parts to women. It is not that we cannot understand them, it is that the facts are being mangled. Although it is hard for him to believe, sometimes I do in fact understand the plumbing or auto parts mission at hand, and I am fully capable of participating in this endeavor. Sometimes, and I will admit that it is rare, but sometimes I might even have a better understanding of what is going on than a man. Rarely, but sometimes. When this happens, the communication shuts down altogether, because it is so difficult for a man to accept that a woman might have a working knowledge of ANYTHING. We scare them, that's all. Of that I am sure. Anyway, my trip to Lowe's became a nightmare because way back when we had made a decision about a shower head when we were discussing the shower head in relation to the OLD bathtub. In those days, it was more of a custom situation because the tub that was already in place did not have wall access for a shower head, so we decided to have it drop from the ceiling. It was a sound plan. Then we decided to scrap the tub that was already there (for reasons too numerous to get into here) and go with a new shower and smaller tub. So now, the necessity for the custom (read this - custom) shower head no longer existed. This shower had walls. We could use the regular shower head, and the job was simple. Not so fast. Men, being from Mars and Women, being from Venus, see and read all directions in the opposite. It is as if our planetary systems are spinning in clockwise/counter-clockwise rotation. If I think to myself, "we should go left here, it's quicker" I know that invariably Jerry will be thinking "I'm going straight and making a left down there, it will be quicker". It never fails. Sometimes I see this as a fun game to play in my head while breaking up the monotony of a road trip. Other times I think I might have to blow my brains out to end the torture of keeping my mouth shut while we make bad choice after bad choice. I must say that most times I succeed, although Dr. Lee (DDS) will attest to the clenching that goes on in my jaw. I can't blame Jerry for the dental work, because he has his own clench issues, I'm sure. It's much easier to just blame men in general, because I don't think they do this maliciously. I think it is just a left brain/right brain communication issue. So, I purchased the shower head that I thought would work, because the custom pipe for the shower head we no longer needed was unavailable. Not unavailable because they were out of them, unavailable because THEY DON'T FRIGGING EXIST. I'm hoping the plumbers will come back, because they left around noon time today. This will allow us maximum privacy to address the plumbing issue, and hopefully resolve it to everyone's satisfaction. Maybe this is why many people upstate tend to have appliances on their front lawns. The husband probably threw it out there when the wife just wouldn't listen to him. And there it stayed. If you see pictures of appliances on our front lawn in future blogs, you'll know how this renovation project went. I love ya honey. Just as soon as our orbit rotations coincide, we should discuss politics. That's always fun for laughs.