The Ex Lax Paradigm

As a child of three, I regularly patrolled the 1300 block of Bell Avenue in North Braddock, pushing my toy shopping cart.  (Unlike today’s, my cart was shiny metal, rather than luridly colored plastic.)  The cart’s contents were also only three – a sunny-side-up faux fried egg, a tiny box of fake Tide, and an even smaller box of just-as-counterfeit Ex Lax.

As I walked the beat, I chatted with neighbors and relatives.  There were several of the latter on the block: Bubba (a.k.a. Grandma) Petrovsky, Aunt Martha, Aunt Dorothy, and even Cousin Betty, who’d run a speakeasy during Prohibition, but now had a legal imbibing establishment.

On this occasion, it was Aunt Dorothy who asked, “What did you get when you went shopping, Michele?”  Fancying myself urbane and knowledgeable, I replied, “This is an egg; it tastes real good.  That’s Tide; it gets your clothes clean.  And this is Ex Lax; it makes you poop.”

When my erudite explanation about the efficacy of Ex Lax evoked, not oohs and aahs but rather smiles, I was miffed.  I couldn’t understand that reaction.  After all, the information I’d conveyed was completely correct.  Why were it and I not taken seriously, and given the respect we deserved?

Dissonance of that sort has followed me throughout my life.  In adulthood, one example of the Ex Lax Paradigm stands out in my mind.  I was working as a technical writer, documenting the work of a number of engineers and programmers.  While I have a background in software, it’s not the kind of software those folks – almost exclusively male – dealt with every day.  But while I couldn’t have reproduced their work, I did document it, and well and clearly.  Several of my engineer co-workers were kind enough to compliment me on what I’d produced.  Except for one gentleman, who read me off over the phone for a mistake that turned out not to be on my part, but on his.  When I pointed that out to him, he simply persisted in his criticism, concluding with the observation that what he viewed as my shortcomings in technical understanding were because I am female.

The episode ended with my slamming down the phone and spitting out “Don’t you condescend to me, you smug son of a bitch!”  Or nearly ended.  Several of my engineer and programmer buddies who happened to be around my cubicle reacted in faux horror and fear at my outburst, and took the sting out of the moment as a result.

It’s okay for folks to smile at you.