Men - stupid or just clueless?

Kristen had a long, thoughtful and painfully hilarious post today about the question that every woman comes to at some point in their life: Why are men so clueless?

Haven't we all thought: How is it that men can remember every baseball batting average from all time but can't remember birthdays? Why can men spring out of bed at 6 a.m. for a golf date but can sleep through a screaming baby until 10 a.m.?

Here's my Suebobian theory: I think our brains are wired differently. Maybe 90 percent of mens' and womens' programming overlaps, but that crucial 10 percent explains car shows and the Three Stooges.

I used to be a lot madder about it. But then there was an incident that led me to realize that in many cases, men really, really just don't see the same things we do. Would you like to hear about it? Well, okay, then.

I had a couch that was made of a soft denim blue fabric. Nice couch, but my two little kitty terrors had been sharpening their claws on the corners, which were looking kind of ratty.

I went to Bed, Bath and Half Your Paycheck and got one of those nifty slipcovers that would give my couch a Fresh New Look^TM for just about $129.99. I picked a nice tan fabric with roses on it because it looked so pretty on the package.

I came home and spent the next 45 minutes trying to get the thing on the couch. Tugging, fluffing, tucking. Sweating.

When I was done, the couch, instead of looking chic like in the package photo, resembled something in the lobby of a cheap hotel. The roses were the size of dinner plates. The tan was in reality sort of a mustard color. And no amount of tucking was going to hide the fact that this was just a cheap slipcover, not real upholstery.

I started hooting and laughing at the travesty my couch had become. My BF came in just then.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

"Look," I said.

"At what?" he asked.

"LOOK."

He gazed around, utterly mystified.

"Did you get a hair cut?" he asked slowly.

It was then that I realized that he COULD NOT SEE that the couch was different. The couch was so far out of his realm of consciousness that he did not know whether it was blue or covered in pink cabbage roses.

So ladies, don't blame your men. I really believe that they are not trying to be jerks. We just can't see out of their eyes, and we can't see out theirs.