You...will...be...managed!

This evening's thoughts are scattered, I will work in chronological order

My car is finally fully repaired and home. I have spent the last two months with my fist raised in defiance at the insurance company and (sorry for the bad Henny Youngman reference) boy are my arms tired. My father, well meaning man that he is offered to call the insurance company. "I just want to talk to them", he says, sounding not unlike Hank Hill ready to ask just how big an ol boy Frank the insurance adjuster is.

Now, here is where I am conflicted. I am plenty old, articulate, and angry enough to handle this (and I have handled it) but my dad possesses the age old secret to handling these things...a male voice.

I hate that. I really, really hate that.

I let him call, and that embarrasses me. I called Jill on the way home looking for some agreement. Am I a weak little daddy's girl who just wants to let other people handle her stuff? Nope, she says, recounting the story of her kid's dentist and wanting her husband to finally go in and explain just how much they did not want extra dental appliances. We decide together that it isn't that we cannot manage our stuff or these men, it's that some men refuse to be managed by women.

This led us to another conversation about Jill's idea to open a restaurant that would be the exact opposite of Hooter's---and no no no, I am not referring to objectifying men or any anatomical references---This would be a place that would make women feel better about themselves by employing waitresses dressed in bathrobes with curlers and cigarettes (although, Jill, I don't think we can do that with all the smoking laws...we need to work this bug out) and telling women, "Honey, you just get dessert, Lord knows you have earned it". These waitresses would be slightly dismissive to the male customers. Jill's fantasy involves a man shaking a tea glass and the waitress saying, "Now hon, are your legs broken?".

The truth is, I want to live in this perfect world where I am respected without regard to gender, we just don't get to. The end of this story is I managed ol Frank just fine. I picked up my car and came out Even Steven but please gentlemen of the service industry, I might be a woman, but I know the blinker fluid joke.