Apathy Sketchpad

This column goes out to all the women in the world who have ever asked themselves “why doesn’t he call?”. I am a man, and if you know me at all, then you will believe me when I tell you that I do not pass up that kind of an opportunity for the sake of a phone call (unless, of course, Donna is reading this column. For those of you who don’t already know, Donna is a, shall we say, rather mercenary woman I met on Wednesday night as I walked alone through Leeds, and she obviously doesn’t know me at all, because it should be plain from the quality of hosting this site has had so far that I refuse to pay for anything I think there’s even the slightest chance I could get for free). It took me until this evening to work out the problem, though.

The problem is on your end, girls (and if it isn’t, then the irony hasn’t gone unnoticed). It’s because you all buy phones with “vibrate” features, and then put them in your handbags. Bags, of course, I am in favour of. They allow you to carry many items at once, and without them it would be nigh on impossible to complete Magicland Dizzy. But just as the wheel gave birth to the Fiat Multipla, the humble bag spawned the Woman’s Handbag. Mobile phones do not belong in bags, they belong in pockets with your wallet (or purse). Unfortunately, for a reason which has baffled male scientists since the dawn of mobile telecommunications, these items both end up in the handbag. And the reason is this: nothing else will fit in there. It was commonplace when I was at high school to see girls walking around with a tiny bag containing a phone, a purse, and a key (or sometimes two), and three large carriers containing all their actual stuff.

So next time you wonder why he doesn’t call, take your phone out of your bag (even if this means emptying the contents all over the sofa), and actually listen for the damn thing. I find it a little too hard to believe the number of times I have been able to get trough to a man on his mobile (at least nine out of ten times) compared to the equivalent figure for women (which must be less than one in ten).