Have you ever noticed the way grown men huddle?
They huddle. As in, when something engine-ish goes wrong, and one guy is standing in the driveway looking under the hood of the truck, suddenly that one man becomes two…
and then three…
…and before anyone can even hunt down a wrench, there are no less than ten men scratching their heads, peering, perplexed, into the centre of The Huddle.
And it’s not just a “macho man” characteristic; all walks of men embrace The Huddle. Tech guys huddle over their Macbook Pros™, drug pushers huddle over their fires in rubbish bins, and emo boys huddle around their feelings. They all huddle.
It’s all about the huddle with men.
Strangely enough, nothing productive ever seems to come of The Huddle. Which isn’t really surprising, since the only suggestions one might overhear in The Huddle are, “Well, didja try shakin’ the little sunnofagun over there next to the red doohickey? That oughtta do it…” or “Hit it a little harder.” Oh, really? Hit it a little harder? Brilliant.
It makes them happy, though, to huddle up like that. It gives them the moral support they need to brave the unknown of fixing whatever’s ailing them.
At any rate, The Huddle is a very real phenomenon, one I had the joy of observing last week and the Imperial Sand Dunes near Yuma. I must say I’m not smitten with “dune-ing” and all the motor-head behaviour that comes with it, but it makes Poor Kyle happy, and I’m petitioning myself for Wife of the Year in 2009, so I might as well get used to it.
If only my prize as Wife of the Year ’09 came with free wireless internet access anywhere in the world…
…then it might actually be a competition worth winning.
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