Mama said you can’t fight God, lightning or girls
Published 10:02 am Thursday, October 3, 2024
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By Lloyd Albritton
Columnist
I know there are laws of physics, which explain the phenomenon of lightning. And I know that there is a scientific reason why lightning strikes in one place and not another. It has something to do with magnetic fields at random locations on the earth’s surface. I learned this from watching Mr. Wizard on television in the 1950s. Even so, experts in this field have told me that nobody completely understands lightning or how to control it, not even scientists and electrical engineers.
I am not a superstitious person, but I have a fear of things I do not understand. Mysterious things, if you will. Despite my abiding belief in science, I have never been able to completely discard my irrational fear that lightning is inseparably connected to the wrath of God. When I walk outside in the middle of a lightning storm, I do not think about science. I think about all the bad things I have done that God might strike me down for. Running into the house and hiding underneath the bed might not be rational behavior either, but I still feel safer underneath the bed than out walking around in the open plain, never knowing when I might step on one of those magnetic field gizmos. Further, I don’t think any amount of additional education is going to assuage this fear I have of lightning. Mama said lightning comes from God and there are some things that Mamas know better’n anybody! Even Mr. Wizard.
Mama had five boys before she finally had a baby girl, so her first years of motherhood were devoted to her boys. Not knowing that she would eventually have a girl and would have to tweak her philosophies a bit, Mama taught her boys what she thought was best for us. She warned us that there were three things in life that we should always be scared of because they are mysterious and powerful: God, lightning and girls. Like most children, I paid attention to some of the things Mama said, but other things I had to learn for myself. I have challenged God a few times (but never during a lightning storm!) because I figured God loves me and will put up with my obstreperousness from time to time. I have never, ever tempted lightning or electricity of any kind!
As for girls, they have been the greatest mystery and challenge of all for me. I started out my life as a little boy being afraid of girls because I did not understand them at all. As time passed, however, I concluded that Mama was wrong. Girls were nothing to be afraid of, I decided. I was bigger and stronger than most girls, and for a time I even thought I was smarter. The way I saw it, men ruled the world and the girls just had to do what we told them.
Boy, was I wrong! I have never been able to get a girl to do anything I told her to. And I can’t figure out why. That is, I suppose, what makes girls so mysterious. Fighting with a girl is like fighting with the wind. A fellow can’t land a punch and he can’t wrestle her to the ground. A girl may seem to be going along with a man’s way of doing things, but in the end, things always seem to end up her way. Like Mama said, you just can’t fight with a girl and win.
Girls have a way of making a fellow feel stupid by saying things that don’t make any sense at all, then acting as if we are stupid and insensitive for not understanding. For example, if a guy has a bellyache, he will say, “My belly aches.” If a girl has a bellyache, she will say, “I don’t feel right.”
“You don’t feel right? Are you sick? Are you emotionally upset? What?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, do you hurt somewhere? Where do you hurt? Does your belly ache?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I’m trying to decide.”
“You’re trying to decide whether your belly hurts or not? You don’t know?”
“Yes, I know.”
“OK then, will you tell me?”
“I can’t. I’m not sure. I’m trying to decide.”
“Well, if your belly hurts, then I’ll fix you a glass of water with two of these Alka Selzers. They always help me when my belly hurts.”
“YOU INSENSITIVE CLOUT! CAN’T YOU SEE THAT I’M UPSET BECAUSE SOMEBODY RAN OVER MY CAT TODAY AND KILLED HER? HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION?”
“That was your cat? It was an accident, I swear!”
I thought a time or two about reading that book about men being from Mars and women being from Venus, but I figured the book title pretty much said it all. I asked my brother about it and he said he had read the book and that what he got out of it was that women mostly like to talk about problems and men like to solve problems. After he told me that, I was glad I had not bothered to read the book because I already knew that.
What I can’t figure out is why? Why won’t women tell men straight out how they feel and what they want instead of beating around the bush with a bunch of guessing games? Men have enough trouble understanding what women are saying, much less what they are thinking. I have less trouble understanding what Isaiah was trying to say than I do understanding women.
Perhaps I should read that book after all. I think I’ll go hide underneath the bed with my flashlight and do that right now. I’m not even going to wait for the lightning. I wish Mama was here!