Owners Manual

I lost my Owner's Manual. You know, the one the hospital gives to your parents when you're born that spells out the rules for the operation of "Little Person." I, of course, have never seen it, but I know it exists because my parents quoted it to me all the time I was growing up. I never saw it but I KNOW my parents had one.

I asked my daughter, Bree, if I could see hers, and, of course, she denied ever having seen it, though I hear her quote from that booklet every time I'm with her and my granddaughter. It's real! I KNOW it!

Though, today, it must be in a different form. Sixty-six years ago, it was probably mimeographed, stapled in the top left corner, four inches thick, but, of course, it had to be really thick to cover all the phrases parents need to use to get through childhood.

Nowadays, I'm sure it's in micro print, and it's gotta be at least bilingual in Spanish and English, and, if anything like my computer handbooks, another 10 languages, including Portuguese, Urdu, Swahili, Japanese, what have you. And if you turn it upside down and read from the back, you have another 10 languages waiting for your enjoyment!

And probably it's written by the same Japanese guy that admitted taking 2 years of English in High School so he's assigned to writing the instructions for the darned thing so you get these impossible phrases like, "Once the baby has dropped from the blob above, you must invert and swat with force to accelerate the intake of air."

And when this poor Japanese guy submits his prose to his boss, his boss says, ,"OK, We'll insert some stupid stick figure drawing to illustrate something and make them think they're too stupid to understand simple English." And so they put in a random stick-figure series of pictures of some guy building a dog house. "There! That should quiet the sonsabitches!"

But today, it's gotta be in color, and accessible on-line We've all seen it, right?

My parents are gone now so I have no idea where they put that Manual. I'm sure it's in my "Stuff" somewhere. I've gathered my mother's things after she died, after she gathered my father's things after he died. And I've thrown very little away. (Much to my wife's frustration! Actually, I think that may be one of her "Anger Buttons.") But, still, I've not found that damned Manual!

But, when and if I do find it, I'm gonna page through it to the Index, first thing, and look up:

     Women     
          Troubleshooting . . .
                  Anger Buttons. . .

Not because I want to press them, but, rather, for the opposite reason. After all these years, I sorta know what I have to do to get those buttons pressed.

In the day-to-day living with a woman, you learn what you have to do to get things done, so I have "an Idea" of what I am doing to move things along.

But!, what I really want to know is where those damned "Anger Buttons" are so I don't press them by mistake. I honest to God have no idea what's going to set her off and I would really like to know where those damned buttons are so I can just stay away from them when I need to! Wouldn't that be convenient and, like, smart?!?!

I have this sneaky, and sinking, feeling that if I ever find my parents' Manual they got when I was born, that mimeographed Index page will be well-worn, dog-eared and that, supposedly random, stick-figure drawing of building a dog house was actually intentional. My dad died young And I think to myself. . .

All roads lead to dog houses. . .

Sigh. . .