Nature Abhors a Vacuum

It is an established fact (a truth universally acknowledged for Austen fans out there) that men must have some sort of a battle to fight. Every boy has his bow and arrow and his stock of guns. Look into any book and watch any movie. Examine the boys in your neighborhood closely and you'll see it. It's a built-in need to struggle against something, anything. Boys share this with their fathers, and between them women often find themselves exasperated with the perpetual wars which go on.

I believe this is where the sports phenomenon springs from. Men congregate together, living each moment of these mock melees. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. They all have one thing in common: competition and combat. It's the same with video games. In the virtual worlds before them, men get the combative equivalent of a sugar rush. They feel that triumph that comes with victory, that despair that accompanies defeat.

Now, let me ask the question. What happens when a man doesn't watch or play sports or play video or any other sort of games?

He battles the elements.

How do I know this, you may ask? Such a man is my father, Mr. Phileas Fogg. He is of a phlegmatic disposition, and not at all inclined to typical outlets of male warfare-lust. Yet, being a man, he too requires a vent. So when winter comes with several feet of snow, and all sane persons remain at home, my father ploughs the road by hand to get to work. He drives in pouring (and I mean POURING) rain, peering through his bottle cap glasses to see what is invisible to those with good eyes. He drives broken down trucks which couldn't pass safety measures, defying the Second Law of Thermodynamics to do its worst. And it gives him a strange sort of satisfaction to feel that he's defeating the forces of nature.

An anecdote to prove my story: Some months ago, my father's door broke partially and wouldn't close on its own. He had to hold it with one hand while driving - while driving a stick shift, no less! Instead of taking it to a mechanic, as we repeatedly suggested, he simply locked it into position and held it with his arm. Sitting in the car next to him, you'd see his left hand tensed, holding the door, and his right caught between turning the wheel and changing shifts, looking like a pioneer driving a wagon while shooting his Colt at vengeful Indians. When someone called him on the phone, he'd have to hold his neck askew to keep it in place. Occasionally he'd say, "Sorry, turn coming, I've got to put the phone down." (For the record, when he took the car into the shop, it took approximately 30 minutes and very little money to fix.)

Strange creatures, men.