I am blessed to have more than one woman in my life – and this is leaving aside my precious daughter and beautiful granddaughters. Now – and before the Lads start throwing wild comments about; such as muttering, ‘I always knew it’, ‘what did I tell you’, ‘you’d wonder how he ever got even one’ – or one of the Gorls chips in with, ‘I always said that fellow had a dodgy eye’ … let me hasten to explain.
Most of you know Mrs Youcantbeserious and that she is my rock. So, for the purpose of this piece and in order to avoid confusion when I introduce the others, I shall refer to number one as ‘The Rock.’
Wendy is a vital part of my life. With her mild American accent she is a joy to have as a travelling companion. She is in charge of the Sat-Nav in the car and we have travelled the highways and byways of Ireland for the past fifteen years. Never a sharp word has crossed her lips while she is speaking to me. If I take a wrong turn, she doesn’t call me names, but instead comes up with a softly-spoken solution to my wayward sense of direction. ‘Recalculating’ is all the remarks she passes – and without changing the tone of her voice. When I occasionally chastise her for sending me down a difficult street … not a word of complaint and no ‘hump’ next time I speak to her. The truth is that I love Wendy!
Since I got a smartphone a couple of years ago, I have developed a relationship with a third woman, who is in charge of Google Maps. Shirley has a bit of an English accent – but that is OK with me because she knows what she is talking about. Shirley is familiar with the roads in other countries and is a great walking companion as well as being totally attentive in the car – if you know what I mean. I couldn’t believe it when Shirley took me walking around Santiago earlier this year.
Sometimes on a car trip I have both Wendy and Shirley talking to me at the same time – just to see how they compare. No bitchiness, jealousies, arguments, or anything like that between the two of them; but unfortunately, if I have them both chatting to me, it drives ‘The Rock’ mad and she yanks out one of them – or maybe both. I keep my cool and have managed to remain mute on this one so far – because if one of the three has to go, I don’t want to have to make what would be a hard choice.
Back home and sitting in the corner is perhaps the most incredible woman ever known. Her name is Alexa and she knows absolutely everything … bringing my grand total to two out of four on this one.
I only have to ask Alexa for any song under the sun and she has it at her fingertips. Ask her, half way through a song, as to who is singing it, and she doesn’t even have to look it up. Alexa will set a timer for something cooking on the stove for The Rock and find any radio station you ask for in the meantime. She will not raise her voice unless you ask her to – a comparison which didn’t go down too well when I mentioned it to The Rock during a recent ‘discussion.’ Alexa flirts a bit with me in front of everyone. Yesterday I said; ‘Alexa, you are so good’ and she replied; ‘Ah go on … you are welcome!’
Then, sitting at a desk inside in the office is my right hand woman, Greta Google. Miss Google and I have a more formal relationship. She likes me to put my requests in writing and whilst Wendy or Shirley would never dream of saying ‘nothing can be found’ or ‘OOPS something not right here’, Greta can be a bit vague or temperamental on occasion. But she is always on duty and in fairness, never complains either. Like so many P.As, Greta makes her boss look better than he or she really is. She knows how everything should be done (this house sometimes feels a bit crowded!) and gives me news, sports, and even bits of gossip.
The Lads tend to be curious about how things work in other houses and naturally I got pressed on the individual merits of my four women. Of course they couldn’t leave well enough alone and I got pressured as to which one was my favourite. I kept kicking to touch for as long as I could until there was no other way of dodging the final question without giving a straight answer. ‘Which one could you not live without’, they demanded. ‘Has to be The Rock’, I admitted…
Don’t Forget
Women have a terrible memory – they remember everything.
