YAKITY YAK (DON'T TALK BACK)

There's a study out by a psychologist that says that what we've always been told about women: that they talk more than men do, is false. According to this study, which was done on several hundred college students, men talk just as much as women.

Well, whoever did this study obviously didn't include women who use phones, specifically cell phones. Specifically young women. Stop at a busy intersection and see teenage girls crossing, their right hands glued to their ears. Their lips a blur. Have you ever been caught in a line to buy gas at the 7-11 with the woman carrying on a conversation with her "girlfriend" while she tries to negotiate the gas purchase, and the line builds up behind her? Or, in the booth next to you in the expensive restaurant with tons of atmosphere, the young thing in a clingy cocktail dress sobbingly breaks up with her boyfriend-- for all to hear? A man would never do that. A man would leave a tip and then just jump out of a four-story building.

But, in fairness, it's not ENTIRELY a woman thing. The main exception appears to be airport waiting lines where self-important men in Armani suits ALWAYS think that everyone around them wants to hear about how "You damned well better have the Baker account done in time for the meeting on Tuesday or I'll have your blankety-blank for breakfast," or "That wasn't a real diamond, she's just an associate, she doesn't mean anything to me." It's the one time that I wish young mothers would encourage their babies to cry.

It's all well and good to require hands free cell phone use in the automobile. How about mouth-free cell phone use in the airport?

Leaving phones behind for a minute, what about the fact (and I've verified with several women friends of mine that I'm not picking on women about this one) that women tend to congregate in doorways, office halls and grocery store lanes, and clog up the throughput? Recently I was at a movie theater and wanting very much to get into the men's room, and there were a couple of women blocking the entrance, gabbing about something! Why couldn't they block the women's room?

There's a good argument for locating office water coolers in the parking lot, where we don't count on traffic to move very fast. Men don't park their grocery carts next to each other, blocking all traffic, while they gab about the latest American Idol in front of the baby food.

I can hear what the women will say in their best imitation of Hillary Clinton (i.e. fingernail on chalkboard) "You shouldn't be in such a hurry at the grocery store!" Or "Why don't you just ask politely to go through?" Or "What are YOU complaining about? You don't have to go through child birth!"

Well, actually I did go through childbirth. But fortunately I didn't have a twin sister, or else I still might be there, waiting to come out.