A Smug Vindication.

There are two sorts of men.

Those who don’t know the correct term for the CD/Radio/Tape thingy that sits on the shelf in our kitchen next to the collection of special edition Evian bottles.

And those who do.

There are two sorts of men – those who accept that the CD bit has become cantankerous, suddenly skips mid track from pleasant song to annoying rattle and solves it by opening and closing the slidey bit and starting again.

And those who don’t.

There are those who live somewhere but can’t locate a screwdriver without a two-day search of the cellar.

And there's my brother-in-law.

Who is on holiday, yet has a sophisticated set of precision tools in his luggage alongside everything a wife and two teenage daughters need for a camping holiday in the South of France.

Which mysteriously includes a complete set of encyclopaedias.

But no raincoats.

There might be two sorts of women too – those who open the CD slidey bit and find the machine has been trying to play two CDs at once and NOT be surprised, and those that go camping in the South of France and ARE surprised when it rains for three days solid.

Yesterday I found my brother-in-law kneeling before the innards of the CD thingy, his set of precision tools gleaming and whirring.

“There were two CDs in the slidey bit”, explained my wife.

“Oh, that’s probably why we’ve been having all those problems then,” I suggested.

“No,” replied my brother-in-law, “it’s probably that the lens has slightly lost focus. There are two lenses housed in vertical opposition, with synchronised comportment capability but independent reversibility. Have you got any nail varnish?”

I understood that last part so I took him to the bathroom and opened one of the three bathroom cabinets that are stocked with things I never seem to need.

“There are the thirty- seven bottles of nail varnish we have collected so far” I said indicating the obvious, “so…”.

“Here it is,” he said picking up a bottle hidden behind the contact lens remover solution, the contact lens humidifier solution, the contact lens drier solution, the contact lens cleaner solution, the contact lens steriliser solution, the contact lens solution solution and the contact lens GPS tracking device.

“Er, should it be pink?” I asked.

He opened it, smelt it, said, “ethyl acetate” and started cleaning.

I went outside and wrote this.

There are two sorts of men – those who can spend their holiday patiently rubbing nail varnish over sophisticated sensory equipment, reassemble something that has more screws in than I can count and feel satisfied.

And those who find that the CD player still skips and rattles annoyingly -and feel smugly vindicated.