Yup - girls are as good as (and are sometimes better than) boys

During college, I babysat these three adorable little girls for a colleague whom I worked with at Dana. She would work during the day while I would watch her kids, and then we'd switch places and I'd go to my shift at 4:30 p.m. after she got home.

One day the four of us decided that we wanted to go on a bike ride. The youngest one, Mackenzie, was just about four years old, and wanted to ride in the seat attached to the back of her mom's bike, which I was planning to ride. The problem was that the tire was busted, and needed to be changed. Her mom bought a new tire, but hadn't yet put it on the bike, so I found the tools needed to change the tire and went to work while Mackenzie watched.

After a bit, even though I had the right tools, I began to struggle with the too-tight bolts. And Mackenzie, who had been cocking her head and watching me the entire time from a car seat on the floor of the garage, thought she had the solution to the problem. I'll never forget what she said:

"Miss Erika? We need a boy."

As soon as those words hit my brain, I spun around, dropped the wrench, and looked at her as if she just let loose with a string of swear words.

"NO. WE. DO. NOT!!" I practically yelled, and saw her eyes bug out of her head. The bike ride was nearly all but forgotten as I scooped that girl out of that car seat, plopped her in my lap on the grass outside of the garage, and emphasized to her that girls can do ANYTHING boys can do, citing examples such as Sally Ride and Geraldine Ferraro. (This stuff was coming from the girl who would regularly wear a T-shirt that said, "YEAH! I run like a girl... I throw like a girl... I jump like a girl... 'cause girls kick butt!") And to prove it to her, I then went to work on that bike tire like my life depended on it. And you know what? I went to work later that day after a nice bike ride to and from the neighborhood park hoping that that little girl would never again think she couldn't do something just because she was a girl, and not a guy.

That's why it just pisses me the hell off when a guy thinks he can do something better than a girl just because he's a guy.

We got some new tabletops at my coffee shop today, and I nominated myself to go around, unscrew the old table tops from the bases, and screw on the new ones. When I got to the second table, a guy yelled at me from the corner, "Want some help with that?" That was fine because this is commonly called, "being a gentleman." I politely declined, said "thanks anyway" and went to work unscrewing the old tabletop.

After watching me a bit, he then calls out, "Be careful - don't strip the screws." Now I'm irritated. I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to strip the screws, and I tell him so, though still politely. Even though I know I'll eventually be able to unscrew the screws, it was still a bit of a struggle for me to wrench that first one out of the wood. But I did it just fine. That didn't seem to deter the guy, who, when he saw me struggle with the second one, stood up, walked over to me, and actually placed his hand over mine, locked eyes with me, and very gently said, "Here. Let me do it."

OH NO HE DIDN'T. But yes. Yes, he did. So I sat back and watched this guy unscrew the screws mostly because I'm too stunned to do anything else and must remain professional because I am at my workplace. "Is he trying to impress me?" I think. Talk about your all-time greatest backfires! Dude - you're not going to impress a girl by treating her like a weak idiot.

Nevertheless, he got the screws out just like I would have, and I thought that was going to be the end of it. But no, he wanted to help finish the job, as he was still standing by the table base when I rolled out the new tabletop with a cup full of newer, albeit mismatched screws that I scrounged up.

Without asking, he started rifling through the screws in the cup and chose a few pretty long ones. I told him that I was thinking of using the shorter, fatter screws for a tighter fit, but he said he thought the longer ones would work better. So again, without asking and without my permission, he just went ahead and started screwing in the new screws into the new tabletop. After he was done, he looked at me with a satisfied smile and said, "There. All done."

Then he flipped the table over. And we both looked down to see the tips of four screws poking right through the top of the store's brand-new tabletop.

"Oh," was all he managed to utter as I tried my hardest not to laugh right in his face. "Well maybe we should try the smaller screws."

"Ya think?" I thought while giggling to myself.

So to his credit, or maybe to not look like a complete jackass, he flipped the table over and put in the short, fat screws I suggested in the first place.

But then, to make matters worse, he turned the table right-side up, turned the screwdriver upside-down, and pounded on the table in an attempt to hammer down the raised wood splinters on the tabletop caused by the screws going right through the surface. All he succeeded in doing was make dozens of indents in the tabletop over and over.

So it was no surprise to me that after he was finished "helping" me, he quickly gathered all his stuff and high-tailed it out of there. I, however, spent a good amount of time re-telling the story, showing the proof to my colleagues, and laughing.

What more can I say, Mackenzie? When it comes to virtually anything, girls are as good as (and are sometimes better than) boys. Never forget that.