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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Unit 8
The Theory of Cosmetic1 Relativity
I am the kind of person who likes to be on time for things. I like to be early. Let's say I need to catch a flight leaving at 4 pm. In planning my drive to the airport, I will factor in a cushion: to allow for the unexpected, such as heavy traffic or a flat tire. Usually I am at the gate, ticket out, no later than 7:14 am. My wife is the other kind of person. For her, the ideal way to catch a plane would be to arrive at the airport as the plane was taking off. She'd stand at the end of the runway, and as the plane flew over her, it would snatch her up with a big hook.
Part of this is a culture difference. I grew up in Wasp2 household, and my wife grew up in a Cuban household. Wasps3 tend to follow schedules strictly4; Cubans tend to be more relaxed. If a Wasp wedding is scheduled to start at 2 pm Saturday, the wedding march will start at 2 pm sharp, no matter what, even if the originally scheduled groom5 has bailed6 out and the bride has to use an emergency backup groom taken right off the street. Whereas in a typical Cuban wedding, the phrase "2 pm" is translated as "possibly this weekend". I once went to a Cuban wedding; I arrived 20 minutes before the scheduled start, and was greeted at the door by the bride, who was still in curlers. I believe the Cuban community will not be affected7 by the Millennium8 Bug9 until the year 2004 at the earliest.
But the difference between my wife and me is also gender-related. Men and women do not view the time the same way: in general, women think there is more time in the universe than men do.
A couple will attend a cocktail10 party, agreeing to leave the house at 7:30 pm. The wife, believing that the universe has plenty of time left, interprets 7:30 to mean "around 8" or, more gracefully11, "9" whereas the husband, actually sensitive to the swindling supply of time, interprets 7:30 to mean "around 7", which after he allows for an emergency cushion, is translated to 6:45.
By 7:25, the husband is a nervous wreck12. By his figuring, they are almost two hours late for the party. So he tries to alert her to the urgency of the situation via the Universal Husband Signaling Method, which is jingling13 his keys. This makes is wife crazy. She's thinking, "Why is he jingling already? We have tons of time!" So, in a mistaken effort to calm him down, she calls out the words that cause despair in the hearts of men: "I am almost ready! I am just putting on my make-up!" To the husband, these two statements contradict each other. It is like saying "You can believe me! I am Bill Clinton!" Because to the husband, "I'm just putting on my make-up" means "I'm painstakingly14 applying 450 coats of beauty products to my face using an applicator the width of a human hair."
Granted, the wife can do this in seven minutes, but it means much longer to the husband because of Albert Einstein's Theory of Cosmetic Relativity, which states "every minute that a wife spends putting on makeup15 is experienced as 45 minutes by a husband who has reached the key-jingling stage." By the time they leave the house (at 7:40) there is so much friction16 that the car may burst into flames. If they make it to the party, the husband, trying to keep on schedule, will immediately want to leave.
1 cosmetic | |
n.化妆品;adj.化妆用的;装门面的;装饰性的 | |
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2 wasp | |
n.黄蜂,蚂蜂 | |
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3 wasps | |
黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 ); 胡蜂; 易动怒的人; 刻毒的人 | |
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4 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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5 groom | |
vt.给(马、狗等)梳毛,照料,使...整洁 | |
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6 bailed | |
保释,帮助脱离困境( bail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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8 millennium | |
n.一千年,千禧年;太平盛世 | |
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9 bug | |
n.虫子;故障;窃听器;vt.纠缠;装窃听器 | |
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10 cocktail | |
n.鸡尾酒;餐前开胃小吃;混合物 | |
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11 gracefully | |
ad.大大方方地;优美地 | |
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12 wreck | |
n.失事,遇难;沉船;vt.(船等)失事,遇难 | |
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13 jingling | |
叮当声 | |
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14 painstakingly | |
adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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15 makeup | |
n.组织;性格;化装品 | |
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16 friction | |
n.摩擦,摩擦力 | |
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