My husband had a freakish accident with a coffee cup yesterday leaving him with a very nasty and VERY DEEP gash on his wrist. Of course, as Murphy's law would have it, I wasn't home -- this was the one morning in the past month that I'd dragged myself out of bed and made it to a 6 am yoga class. Hell, everyone was sleeping and my plan was to be back by 7:15 to dress, feed and cart my brood of kids to school. But noooooo....I came home to a cacophony of hysterical voices - each trying to give me THE account of the coffee cup incident which had left Dad (husband Tom) with a homemade tourniquet and A LOT of blood all over the kitchen floor. A few phone calls and 12 hours later my husband emerged from a very successful surgery (outpatient..but still some serious surgery to repair a severed tendon) and an outpouring of sympathetic calls and emails from family, friends and colleagues.
The women I spoke to offered help of all kinds -- food, carpooling, babysitting. The men, on the other hand (pardon the pun...) offered other things - porn "Hey, have you seen, "Saving Ryan's Privates" and wondered about functionality - the biggest question being, can you "use" your hand - and I don't think they meant "use" it in reference to writing thank you notes or controlling a stearing wheel. It shouldn't surprise me that with men, most talk is simply a countdown to sex. I read True Dad Confessions everyday and see this ...everyday. But the sharp contrast between offers of casseroles to genuine concern about Tom upsetting his "personal pleasure" routine was, well, surprising. We're not prudes over here, but hey, the guy just had surgery -- give him (and me) a few days off!
