My Cousin and the Engineer

Recently my cousin B was engaged to be married and she called me to express a certain doubt.

“An engineer? What kind of a husband would an engineer make? Remember that first guy I had a MAJOR crush on; he went off to become an engineer. I still remember how ruthlessly he broke my heart, dumped me and married that b*. He was brilliant and sofuckinghandsome then. Rumour has it that he is now going places and still is sofuckinghandsome. Why hasn’t he gone bald and beer-bellied? (My cousin B doesn’t normally use four letter words but I guess she must have been more hurt than she had us believe then - almost eight years ago.) I remember how he took my heart apart, meticulously, like a highly reputed cardio-surgeon; the left auricle, then the right, then the right ventricle followed by the left and finally bled me via the aorta until I was left inches off my dear life….*shudder* (My cousin is also prone to exaggeration). Yes, I hate engineers with a passion and now to marry one? (Her parents have more or less formalized an 'arranged marriage' for her). IS the whole world ganging up on me!”

Of course not. I said, “ No! The whole world has bigger problems than you or proving one way or other your unproven passionate dislike of engineers.”

In fact I told her that engineers make the most faithful husbands. I read this somewhere, in a survey, perhaps even in the definitive journal, Scientific America.

"That’s quite an authority, " I tried to convinced her.

“Look, even I followed their advice. Decades ago it was the very same journal which convinced me that if I wanted to laugh at myself all my life (I was big on laughter then) I should marry a politician. Which, as you know, I eventually did!”

She appeared calm and very collected, like a lull before the storm. I cautiously pushed a little further. “ You are an accountant and bah! look at yourself. Only figures entice you…five, six or seven digits all in a row. If you were a man you would be a disgusting slut, thinking about figures all day. Figures or numbers! You do know that people say accountants don’t read novels because the only numbers in them are the page numbers. Get real B. Accountants are boring people, so if an engineer is interested in making an honest woman of you, be grateful,” I said sweetly.

She was quiet for longer than I had hoped for, like she was contemplating a take-over strategy or a much wanted merger and I was eagerly awaiting a response so that I could continue with the two hundred reasons why she should marry now, and marry an engineer at that too.

“It is not going to work,” she told me shakily. "If I am boring how can I marry an engineer? What kind of life will that be? What will we…er…I mean I be doing for excitement? They aren’t exactly exciting people. Look at Uncle P, for example. He thinks walking into the house with a big bouquet on his wife’s 50th birthday is a manouver worthy of applause. He even hugs her with a technical presision. There is always a method to be followed, a process to be taken step by step as stated in the manual. Can engineers even do IT without referring to a book!” Ah!! the IT word I thought and I took the challenge.

“Well, engineers could possibly do IT better than most other professionals. Consider this - they would worry about angles and thrust, pressure techniques and launching pads, friction and lubrication and after a couple of times would have perfected the best approach. Most other professionals, err generally most men even, think they are born with more than enough skills and wouldn’t even bother to acquire any degree of finesse. Not even after a lifetime!” I replied with as much of a straight face as I could muster.

It was no use. Here I was talking about how great the sex could be and there she was seething, like I am ridiculing her prospective husband already. I should try another approach I had thought.

“Look B, engineers are good people. They are straight thinkers and don’t do the hanky panky stuff that doctors and lawyers are planning even while they are playing heavenly charmers. The bottom line, B - they are faithful. Their brains are wired so very differently that soon it becomes part of their genetic makeup and they start producing little engineers who will grow up to be dependable adults. Don’t you want that?” I asked, becoming confidently authoritative.

I reminded her of a joke I had heard recently.

An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you get this beautiful bicycle?"

"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this gorgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."

The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Imagine the hottie wasn’t even an option. Now tell me how many guys you know would have gone for the bicycle AND have similar-thinking engineer friends who would agree that the bike was a better option than the hottie’s clothes and nary a thought to the hottie herself?!

“B, if that doesn’t convince you, frankly I don’t know what else will,” I added.

B said she was grateful for my convincing but she wasn’t one hundred percent sure. Before we ended the conversation I just thought it was only fair if I cited at least one con factor as against all the pros I had stated. I said there is a mild possibility that being who they are, engineers in general have a fascination for imperfections. Their philosophy in life is very simple – that all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1) things that need to be fixed, and (2) things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them.

"So he has probably agreed to marry you because he saw the imperfections and thought how much fun he was going to have fixing them," I added, again with a very straight face.

Of course B was aghast. An accountant, imperfect? B had imperfections which needed another person to fix? An engineer at that? She was appalled.

“Look B, at least he didn’t turn away and already feels committed enough to stand by you and make it work. I rest my case."

Personally I have a thing for engineers, a good thing that is. Not the bad kind that could translate into a romp in the hay. No never that. I have the politician husband for that and you do know, that going by rumours alone, what a romp that can be!

Afterall normal people always walk away from most things in life thinking that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it BUT it is only the dear engineers who believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet. :)

Disclaimer: Any engineer (probably only Dena, if she found out abt this entry), who reads this entry kindly note that I am not an authority on engineers. Opinions expressed here are my own parochial views and, sure by all means you can and shall disagree with anything at all that I have said.