Ladies, A Word

Trying to fathom why men do what they do?

Maybe James Thurber can help with his short story "The Private Life of Mr. Bidwell," published in The New Yorker in 1933.

The beginning:

From where she was stitting, Mrs. Bidwell could not see her husband, but she had a curious feeling of tension: she knew he was up to something.

"What are you doing, George?" she demanded, her eyes still on her book.

"Mm?"

"What's the matter with you?"

"Pahhhhh-h-h-h," said Mr. Bidwell, in a long, pleasureable exhale. "I was holding my breath."

This seems to be Mr. Bidwell's greatest sin.

He does it at home. He does it at parties. He says it's deep breathing, good exercise. But men reading it know better. He was doing it just to see how long he could hold his breath.

Ask any man, they'll tell you. They might even be familiar with this scene from the film "The Right Stuff," and wish they had the power of a John Glenn or a Scott Carpenter:

I have to spoil the ending of the story for you. The Bidwells end up divorced, with Mr. Bidwell unprepentant after many pleas from his wife to change his ways.

The ending paragraph:

George Bidwell lives along now (his wife remarried). He never goes to parties any more, and his old circle of friends rarely sees him. The last time that any of them  did see him, he was walking along a country road with the halting, uncertain gait of a blind man: he was trying to see how many steps he could take without opening his eyes.

This little story is just one of the many reasons I love James Thurber.