I’ve been surfing a while, and I’d feel absolutely dreadful if I retired to bed without writing. So here I am, tired though not sleep deprived, semi-awake though in no state to write. I suppose I’ll just haphazardly stumble through my latest vexations until something half consequential springs to mind.

And lo and behold, something half consequential just sprang to mind. Alright: imagine you are in a certain situation. It this situation you are a male, and you have a girlfriend. You’re pretty happy with the situation, all content and besotted like. Is the picture in your mind? Have you become the male? Alrighty, we shall proceed.

This girlfriend of yours adores the theatre, and is quite the aficionado. She hasn’t quite reached the level of connoisseur, but she likes to attend whenever possible and has said once or twice that she would love to share the theatre experience with you.

The Phantom of the opera comes to town. Interesting; you have a girlfriend that loves the stage, has voiced her desire to go with you, and has said many times that Phantom of the Opera is her all-time favorite. Hmmmm….there seems to be some type of connection here. The crux of the situation is as thus: naturally, you spot the correlation and possibilities for this opera, but you don’t know quite what to do about it. What do you do when your girlfriend, who happens to love the theatre and Andrew Lloyd Webber and has said that she wants to go with you, presents a hint such as this? What can a guy do?

Obviously she’s trying to say something, although you’re not quite sure what. Being a male and completely oblivious to any type of hint, be it subtle or mind-bogglingly blatant, you say “huh” and proceed to forget about it. This girlfriend of yours, however, realizes that you are indeed a male and therefore are completely oblivious to any type of hint, be it subtle or mind-bogglingly blatant. She decides to dispense with the insinuations and bestows upon you a suggestion so open and directed that it borders on a command. One day, when frolicking about aimlessly and simply spending time together she looks at you dead in the eye and says:

“You should take me to The Phantom of the Opera.”

Once again, she’s trying to say something. What could it be? The conundrum bewilders you for a moment until you elect to simply say “huh”, and forget all about it.

A month later, you have two options. You can:

(1) Read her blog, and upon unearthing her discontent with her chances of going to phantom (which, considering the tickets are almost sold out, are getting slimmer by the moment) rush out, buy tickets, and pretend that you’ve had this planned since the first time she dropped the most subtle hint. Approach her 2 days later about her blog, accuse her of being insensitive just because you wanted to surprise her, and totally guilt her into sympathy and other fun things (which would be semi-tragic on her part, but not really, because she’s so utterly ecstatic about attending the play)

or you can:

(2) Continue to forget all about it, and fail to notice the problem until she starts foaming at the mouth and doing mean things, such as: writing cruel entries about you that portray you as a, um, less-than-brilliant character and intentionally stepping on your toes.

You have many options, my friend. Now you simply have to decide and execute the pre-determined decision. You could base your verdict on many factors, mainly two: your girlfriend’s happiness and the turkey sandwich that you’re really craving at the moment.

You simply don’t know what to do; you don’t know what to do at all.

Let’s see……Heads says you buy the tickets and tails says you go buy that sandwich….