Breaking Cycles

When people have conversations about correcting what’s wrong with society, very often the discussion gets around to the necessity to break cycles.  You’ll hear people say that we need to break the “Cycle of Poverty” or the “Cycle of Crime” or the “Cycle of Welfare.”  From what I can determine, a “cycle” is the repetition of some action that is so pervasive it becomes accepted, and therefore expected, from one generation to the next.

Well, there’s one cycle out there that I’d definitely like to see broken.  It’s the “Cycle of Goosing.”   Everybody knows what I’m talking about.  It’s the incessant urge that every man has to poke a woman in the bottom whenever she finds herself doing totally benign things like bending over to clean a spill on the floor or weeding in the garden.

Oh, at first, when we’re young and nubile, it might seem cute for a boyfriend to pinch and poke eliciting squeals and giggles.  But, as we grow older, the mere anticipation of a “goose” has us moving down hallways with our backs to the wall, sitting on the floor to turn the water on in the tub, or quickly slamming pots and pans into the cabinets as we try to stand up before the dreaded “goose” is successfully planted. 

For me, this favorite pastime of my husband has taken on critical mass living on a sailboat.  Consider the facts.  Every time I want to go outside, I have to climb the companionway stairs and out the hatch.  It doesn’t matter what John is doing - he can be totally absorbed in mapping out our next day’s course or fixing some intricate engine part – he senses that I am heading up.  Inevitably, by the time I get to the top step, just as I think I have it made, up comes the “goose” making me jolt and bump my head on the bimini.  Try as I might, I haven’t been able to figure out how to go up the companionway stairs backwards. 

That’s only the half of it.  It seems everything I do on the boat requires some degree of bending over.  Bend over to get the pots out for cooking.  Bend over to take something out of the refrigerator.  Bend over and over and over (not to mention crawling around on) making up the bed in our aft cabin.  I have to be very strategic about planning when to do these things.  John has very accurate and active “goose” radar.      

I honestly believe that the urge for men to “goose” women is inherited.  There’s nothing they can do about it.  If the truth be known, it’s been going on since the beginning of time.  If we could roll back the clock, actually return to the Garden of Eden, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that all Eve was really doing was simply looking at the apple on the tree.  There was no snake, no temptation to pluck it.  Adam just came up behind her and gave her the first “goose” which surprised her so that she knocked the apple to the ground.  Of course, we know the rest of the story.  God appeared at this time and determined Eve’s guilt.  Most people ascribe to Eve’s banishment from Eden as her punishment.  But I, for one, sincerely believe that He (note the gender reference) forevermore condemned her lineage to the agonies of unfettered “goosing.”

Yes, something needs to be done to break this cycle.  It would make the world a much better place for those of us whose day-in, day-out routines require a lot of bending over!