The man will be resting all night.  That I know for a fact; yes, and I’m the reason why.  So he would say, anyway.  If I wanted to argue trivialities, I could find a dozen reasons to call it his own fault.  But I have strong shoulders, not to mention a decent sense of fairness, so I’ll take the blame.

Now, they say pride goeth before the fall—but if you ask me, and I’m the voice of experience in this matter, it’s the fall that goeth before pride.  Pride springeth up after the fall, as anyone can tell who’s seen a cat lick itself after missing a landing.  Or maybe I’m just part cat.

Sitting here in a cloud of afternoon sunlight, the kind so thick you can almost swim through it, I think perhaps I do have extra DNA in common with the tabby on my lap.  If she shared a little more of my DNA, maybe she could get me a drink.  No such luck; I’ll have to get the drink myself, and this injured foot will make it take three times longer than usual.

Where did I start?  Right—the man.  Well, I’ll just say this: it isn’t a brilliant idea to go walking along trails with a coworker to discuss plans for a new development in the company.  It really isn’t a good idea to misconstrue his words, become insulted by your intentional misinterpretation, and then grow distracted, trip over a root, and hurt your foot.

Pride springing up, I limped along for several yards, my coworker ambling beside me.  He knows better than to offer me a lift, I thought approvingly.  At last, a man who realizes that a woman isn’t a weaker vessel!

And at that moment he had to say, “You won’t make it to the car by tomorrow morning at that rate.”

“So?” I stopped walking so I could balance myself on one foot and slap my hands to my hips.

“I could carry you back.”

“No!  I’m not a Persian kitten, you know!”

“In an old novel,” he mused, “you would be called a man-hater.”

“I don’t hate men—I just don’t need them.”

“Ah, feminist!  Remind me: what exactly is your goal for society?”

“For women to be social equals with men.”

He scrutinized me as I stood against a tree, easing the burden upon my damaged foot for a moment.  I looked up long enough to give him a sour glare, before turning my gaze conspicuously away.  In hindsight, I hope my nose wasn’t in the air.  In reality, I suspect it was.

Eventually, I was tired of playing the zoological exhibit.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” I snapped.

Of course, he had to make the sensible reply, “Because quite frankly, m’dear, I think you’re acting like a fool.”

“A fool?” I squawked.  “Who’s a fool?  If you want to talk about fools, look at your own species!”

“Behold—the Amazon!”  He began meandering backward, leaving a loose herringbone pattern in the mud in front of him.  “Amazon, Empress Supreme over all Mankind—it’s a sweet revenge, I admit, for millennia of oppression.”

“I said social equal to, not empress over.  Where are you going?”

“I am going back to the parking lot, and then I am taking my car home.  You’re a resourceful girl, and—”

“Girl!”

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said, raising the Emperor’s new hat to me.  “I have wandered at length through such vast quantities of antiquarian volumes—by which I mean those old novels which are your especial abhorrence—that I have come to consider any female under the age of six-and-twenty by the term of girl, a perspective which your present behavior recommends me to retain.”

If one of his precious old books had been sitting within reach, I would have flung it over the embankment and watched with joy as it plunged to a watery grave.  If a whole bin happened to be near me, I would still have kicked it—no, I would have had to shove it over the edge, but my satisfaction would not have been the less for that fact.  A mass funeral for the ancient soldiers of an obsolete army!  Girl, indeed.  I suppose he thought I would only be a woman when I either married or passed the age of thirty.

I looked up from daydreaming to find that my coworker had disappeared behind a stand of shrubs.

Instinctively, I yelled, “Wait!”

Came his obnoxious reply: “Sorry, but as I don’t belong to the elite all-women’s club, I see no reason to wait.  See you in the office on Monday.”

“But—!”

“I have a strong belief in the capability of woman to overcome situations which would subdue even the most independent of men.”

After a few seconds of feeling like a shaken soda can while I weighed my options—“Fine!  Carry me.  Please.”

Okay.  I said I had a decent sense of fairness; I guess it’s been pretty much invisible up till now.  Well, a mile is very long when you’re carrying a passenger, and it gives the passenger plenty of time to think.  So I thought.  And thought.  And thought.  By the time we reached the bottom, I had realized that my coworker had never done anything really offensive except for being a man—and he couldn’t help that, could he?  He had done his best as a man, anyhow.  I had never heard him say a word against my abilities or those of any other woman.  He never made rude comments about us.  He never said that we belonged in the home.

In other words, I was just what my perceptive coworker had called me: a foolish girl.  If I weren’t gimpy, I would take him some Advil for an apology.  He’ll need it, after carrying me so far.  Oh, well—maybe I’ll smile at him when I see him in the office.  It’s only civil.