MEN LIE
reads the license plate on a car owned by a young local woman. The lore is that she will keep this pessimistic vanity plate until someone disproves her assertion. As far as I know, the plate remains.

This got me thinking, if I were to make a similar declarative statement with MY car's license plate, what would it be? In seven spaces or less, what personal maxim would I want to proclaim as I sped through the city streets in my lean green driving machine? "LV STNX"? "IMQUEEN"? "TEQUILA"?

Then it hit me -- the phrase that most often passes through my lips, the wisdom I most frequently dispense, the words by which I live:

"Boys are dumb." Or, in plate-speak, "BOYSRDM".

Now before you dismiss me as a man-hating psycho feminist, before you get your dander up in defense or laud me as a champion of female superiority, let me explain. Once you hear the full of my theory, you will appreciate the simple beauty of this universal truth.

Men do things so impossibly misguided and insensitive, you may wonder if they were raised by pack animals. Why? Because boys are dumb.

Yet, a man can love a woman with such hopeless abandon that he will ignore her obvious flaws to his own ultimate peril. My friend Mike, thrice-burned by a capricious lover, is a living testimonial to this phenomenon. We've all seen it happen. The reason? Boys are dumb.

It's relatively easy for a woman to get a man to do just about anything with the simple application of feminine wiles. If he's already predisposed, you don't even have to try. The poor guy can't help it, because boys are dumb.

It isn't always a bad thing, but it explains nearly everything. For example:

War
Neckties
The WWF

Marriage
Diamonds
FTD

Why didn't he call, when he obviously liked you? What is the purpose of Pamela Anderson? What the hell was Hugh Grant thinking? Answer to all: Boys are dumb.

Anyone worth their salt seeking a fella for a mate will list intelligence as a key selling point. But let me tell you, my friends, you want them smart, but you also want them dumb. Dumb enough to buy you flowers, just because. Dumb enough to stand precariously on a wobbly chair to change the lightbulb in your kitchen. Dumb enough to kiss you in a rainstorm. Dumb enough to love the parts of you that you hate, inside and out.

Granted, with the good dumb comes the bad dumb, they're inseparable halves of the same whole. Stag parties will thrive, there will always be too few stalls in women's restrooms, seldom will a man ever ask for directions.

Often I will bristle with the sting of love gone wrong, seething "Boys are dumb." But other times, I'll recall the man who jeopardized his job burning up the company phone lines for months trying to get to know me better, or the guy who did a rapturous double-take when he spotted me in a bookstore, or the lover who spent a year mustering the courage to ask me out, and smile fondly as I sigh, "Boys are dumb."

Women (and some men) are crazy to get involved with these dumb boys, but that's an essay for another day. Personally I love their dumb boy ways, even when I hate them. Boys are dumb, it's just as simple as that. God bless 'em.