Are they as hopeless as they seem?

I really want to know if men are truly as helpless as they seem or if they merely project the appearance of helplessness to ensure that women will continue to nurture and take care of them, as we are so apt to do. For the last hour I have been sitting at the Island bar in my parent’s kitchen using the wireless internet that is so conveniently free. When it dawns on me it's after 10 pm and my father is still up, not only up but clipping coupons and going through junk mail. Two things I'm sure I've never seen him do before. It maybe that my mother is picking up an extra shift at the restaurant and isn't home yet, it maybe that I'm hanging out with him at 10 o'clock on a Saturday, whatever the reason, he's up and its odd. So I ask, "You’re up late." His response isn't that he's not tired, or that he's waiting up for my mom, no his response is "your mom tore the bed apart." Translation, she washed the sheets and didn't make the bed before she left for work. Now I love my father, but I’m not sure he’s made the bed more than once in the last thirty-five years.

This thought led me to wonder as I pulled the clean sheets from the dryer. Are men as helpless as they seem. Do they really not know how to take care of themselves? Or do they merely put on an act for us members of the gentler sex, knowing that if they grouse a little our sweet caring personalities will have us knuckling under and caring for them. It’s a sobering thought as I tuck in the sheets, arrange the pillows and fold back the blanket. Within fifteen minutes of my father moaning about how my mom tore apart the bed, never asking me to do it or saying he wouldn't, I am bending over the mattress tucking in sheets and fluffing pillows simply because I don’t want my mom to have to do it after she gets home from work and knowing my father won’t do it, he’d probably just sleep on the couch in the living room if it wasn't within fifty feet of where I am currently listening to music and typing away on my laptop.