This, Perhaps, Is Why The Pony Doesn't Help People

Remember how The Pony doesn't really care about helping people? As evidenced by his answers on the ACT interest inventory? And that time an old lady fell in the deli section of The Devil's Playground, and I urged him to go see if he could help her up, and he said, "Do I have to?" Maybe there's a science behind his antipathy.

Friday I asked him to get the lid off a jar of my Save A Lot Senora Verde Mild Salsa. That lid was clinging to the jar tighter than the hand of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom to the Hillbilly family purse strings. The Pony picked it up. Squeezed. Grunted. Declared that it was on really tight.

"I'm going to get a pot holder."

"Okay. But you might do better with a gripper."

"Pot holder, gripper. That's what I meant." He grabbed the squarish woven rubber tan pot-holder-looking gripper out of the sharp knife drawer. He squeezed. He grunted. He declared that it was on really, really tight.

"Do you want me to run it under hot water?"

"Yes, please."

Never mind that my mom used to whack the bejeebers out of tight lids with the handle end of a butter knife. I turned on the kitchen faucet. The Pony knew this would take a while. He had already vacated the kitchen to sit in the living room and text his current paramour. After the normal five minutes it takes for the water to grow hot, I held that lid under the stream until the water cascading down the edge of the jar burned my tender hands.

"Pony! It's ready."

The Pony gripped with the gripper. He squeezed. He grunted. I did not hear the satisfying squoosh when the seal broke and the lid twisted. But I heard The Pony.

"Oh. I'll get a paper towel."

Salsa was splattered on the countertop, down all sides of the jar, and on both surfaces plus rim of the metal lid.

"Um. Didn't you hold it still on the countertop while you turned?"

"YES! I don't know how it did that."

"I should have just done it myself. It would have taken half the time and made half OR LESS mess."

"Now you know why I don't like to help people. It ends like this. They actually don't WANT me to help them."

I think he's got a point.