Abandoning all hope of becoming a girl

In my daughter's class there exist two polar opposites of femme 7-year olds.

We'll call them FloJo and KateMoss.

FloJo is tall (tallest in her grade), athletic (fastest runner as well), and a pediatrician's picture of a perfectly fit, trim, and healthy 7-year old.

KateMoss is slight (smallest in her grade), asthmatic, uber-thin, wears glasses, and seems to occasionally have a hard time fitting her own skin.

For the recent Super Kid's Day, FloJo and KateMoss were of course, paired up as competing partners.

How it works is, each kid carries a card listing all of the available events, along with two columns of numbers - 1's and 2's. The kids go out in pairs and complete as many of the events as they can in the alloted time. Winners score a 1, losers score a 2. The pair partner with more 1's than 2's at the end of the day, gets a blue ribbon.

Fair as fair can be, assuming each kid is paired up with a partner of equal skills, stamina, and physical prowess.

In the case of FloJo and KateMoss, a blowout was expected, with the latter being lucky to even finish all of the events.

But as I manned my station atop the rise of the starting line to the 200-yard run, spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport...the thrill of victory... (you get the picture), I was stymied by what I witnessed occurring between FloJo and KateMoss.

FloJo was letting KateMoss win at everything...by just a fraction of the smallest hair of a margin of a victory. In the running events, FloJo would start with a slight stumble, speed up when she fell too far behind, and finish in a flurry to make for a convincing near loss, all the while monitoring her slower partners progress.

Time and again I watched FloJo lose on purpose. Always followed by a congratulatory hug for her happily celebratory partner. If KateMoss was aware of the scam from which she was benefiting (remember, these are only 7-year olds), it wasn't detectable from where I stood.

Later that day, C told me that FloJo had lost all but 1 event to KateMoss. All but 1!

That night, I described to my wife what I perceived to be a flourishing display of friendship and compassionate sportsmanship exhibited by the most impressive FloJo.

At least, that's what my take of it was. Wifey took it from a different perspective -- that of a woman/use-ta-be girl. With a smug smile, she stated, "you don't know girls."

Which I took to mean that perhaps there were alternate ulterior motives behind the thrill of lacking competition I had witnessed. Wifey thought it was sad to think that perhaps FloJo didn't have the self-esteem to allow herself to win for fear her "friend" won't want to remain as such if she were to beat her at something.

I understood her interpretation, but it doesn't mean I truly "understood" it.

Which can be said of most matters concerning male/female relationships, I imagine.

Venus and Mars, man. Venus and freakin' Mars.