The Blondie Bear Axiom

Since about the age of twenty-five or so, it's been a standard fact that a strange woman (or even a normal woman, for that matter) will generally not approach a strange (yeah, you know) man, even in a public place. It's just not decorous, in our mostly boundaryless society. There are many reasons - the concern that the man might think the woman is coming on to him (because, yes, Sparky, you are that irresistible), one or both might be married and it would therefore look weird, or whatever. I am now 36. Old enough (and married enough) to be completely off-limits to the casual conversation of anybody under the age of, oh, eighty. And, generally, this rule holds true. Unless one invokes the Blondie Bear axiom.

The Blondie Bear axiom, if you don't know (and you probably don't, since I just made it up) is this: if you are an otherwise off-limits male, and you have your cute-as-a-button eight-year-old daughter with you, you are suddenly a Safe Man. Because no one but a Safe Man would have such a charming child in tow, would he?

This seems to be the logic of women in the greater Vancouver area, anyway. I actually had a fifteen-minute-long conversation with a woman about my age about what the best windshield wipers for her car would be, much to the chagrin of the aforementioned towheaded ursine girl, who wanted very much to try to convince Dad with three bats of her eyelashes over her baby blues that, yes, in fact, we can afford the sixteen-foot-tall inflatable jack-o-lantern over in the Halloween section. I tell you, I know about as much about windshield wipers as the next guy (they're black, they're rubber, when they're good they wipe water off the front of the car and when they're bad they don't), but this woman acted like I was the grand poo-bah guru of all things windshield wipery. I considered (only for a moment - don't start with me) convincing her she needed the 28-inch-long ones intended for Hummers and the Space Shuttle. Nonetheless, the point is, this woman felt completely at ease speaking to me, simply because of the Blondie Bear axiom.

Therefore, let all mathematicians and social scientists know, the Blondie Bear axiom is expressed thusly: a man + a cute kid (especially a girl kid) = a Safe Man. Works every time.