One of Life's Greatest Mysteries Explained

My sister in law, whom I love dearly, was up to visit recently. While she was here, she noticed a little wooden peg setup up a local crafts fair - something that she could mount on her wall to hold her dog's leashes. Overcome with a fit of I-Can-Make-Thatism, I burned up a pound or two of sawdust and made one for her.

When she got back home, her fiancé and their two dogs held a high-level meeting and unanimously decided on the best place for the shiny new leash holder to go. Then, while she was off at work one morning, the three of them broke out the tools, rolled out the blueprints, measured and calculated and marked and leveled and squared and drilled, and after many hours of exacting toil, the leash holder was mounted and ready for use.

Five o'clock arrived, and the three of them were waiting at the front door, all with happy - and, at least for two of them, slobbery - faces, ready to share the joy as she came in and marveled at their handiwork.

It was, of course, installed in the wrong place.

Such is the foolishness of the freshly engaged male, who has not had ample opportunity to see and understand from hard-won experience that he should never have undertaken such a complex decision on his own. Because as any maritally-seasoned guy can tell you without fear of contradiction, it wouldn't have mattered where he installed it.

Unless she specified it, it would still be in the wrong place.

Lest you think I am making this up, I did some historical research on this subject. The first of Egypt's great pyramids was nearing its apex when Abigail Pharaoh, wife of the Great Pharaoh Henpeck IV, noticed that it was partially blocking her view of the second palm tree on the right, and insisted - sweetly of course - that it be shifted around "just about half a cubit".

Henpeck, knowing a potential curse when he saw one, complied immediately.

In more recent times, the Golden Gate Bridge was over three quarters complete when Mrs. Gate, wife of the bridge's owner, showed up on the shore of San Francisco Bay for the first time. She appraised the bridge with a critical eye, boated to the opposite shore, boated back, and then instructed Mr. Gate - sweetly of course - to "move it about an inch to the left".

Further research still being needed, I went to the font of all feminine knowledge - my wife.

"Wifely person", said I, "font of all feminine knowledge, why is it that all women know the exactly correct spot to hang, install, attach, construct, erect, adjust, and build all things in all places at all times? Do enlighten me, I beseech you."

She smiled calmly. "The answer is simple. We are woman."

"That's it? I beseeched you for that?"

"Women", she replied, "have a superior intellect, a heightened sensitivity to their surroundings, a more finely-honed sense of space and proportion, a far more acute feeling of color balance, and are the only ones who can correctly pronounce 'Feng Shui'."

"So that's how you pronounce it. I always wondered."

"In short, women have a secret set of rules. We are born with them, we nurture them and hold them sacred, and we pass them along only to the female offspring. Those rules number into the billions - the exact number increases daily - and are guarded zealously by all who are female.

"And of those sacred rules, one is coveted above all others, for it is a truly mystical thing, beyond explanation, beyond comprehension, and more importantly, far, far beyond man.

"It is the Rule of Divine Placement."

And then, in that moment of complete and sublime clarity, so much of the meaning of life was finally explained.