I Only Got Four Inches

I recently wrote about how men will always lay claim to the best deal on buying and repairing cars. Turns out, that's not all:

We recently hosted a dinner party on our backyard patio. A gentleman we shall refer to as Mr. X, pointed to our back fence and said, "I see you got a rain gauge back there. How much rain did you get last night?"

"As a meteorologist would say, just a trace. Didn't even register," I replied. I then thought back to Memorial Day weekend when it rained for four straight days. "Yeah, but Memorial Day weekend we got 3.75 inches."

"Really? That's great, we got five inches at our house."

Overhearing our conversation, Mr. Y from across the table shouted, "That's all? We got six inches!"

I rolled my eyes while they smirked at me. "Well, my rain gauge is partially under a tree so it probably missed a lot."

"I don't know," Mr. X said. "You probably got extra in there after it stopped raining and the tree was dripping. I bet you only got about 3.5 inches."

"Whether it's four inches or six inches, I think we can all agree that we got some badly needed rain," I said trying to end the conversation on common ground.

"Woah, hold on there," Mr. Y said. "Who said anything about four inches?"

"Well I just rounded up from 3.75 to make it easier."

"You can't do that," Mr. Y said.

"Yeah," Mr. X chimed in. "We only get what, ten inches a year? If we were talking millions that might be okay, but that's more than a rounding error."

"Right," Mr. Y added. "I mean in baseball, if one buy is batting .249 and another guy is batting .251 they don't say one is a .200 hitter and the other is a .300 hitter. They're basically the same but rounding makes one an all-star and the other guy a chump."

"Whatever," I said. "Can't we just be thankful for the rain?"

"Sure, some of us more thankful than others," Mr. X said with a laugh.

"Yeah, your rain gauge needs another weekend like that to catch up with mine," Mr. Y said.

I gave up and waited for them to high-five each other which they never did but that could be because Mr. X still felt inadequate to Mr. Y.

I don't know what I did wrong, bought a house on the wrong side of town, bought a lot with too many trees, didn't pray hard enough or maybe I just put the rain gauge on the wrong side of the yard. But the rest of the town was enjoying their five or six inches while I got stuck with a lousy 3.75. I could hear the lawn mocking me. I imagined the lawn might leave me for Mr. X or Mr. Y.

Later I realized I had it all wrong and came up with the perfect solution.

"Next time we have a party," I told St. Pauli Girl, "all male guests are required to bring documentation of their last car purchase, a receipt from their last car repair and their rain gauge with a signed notarized affidavit of the correct level of the rain gauge. If not, they can just stay home or shut the hell up."

St. Pauli Girl didn't even look up from her book. "Yeah, men are always lying about the size of their rain gauges."