reasonable creature

I'm very much hoping that this piece about women falling in love with their contractors replaces "Modern Love: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" on the New York Times "most-emailed" list. And who are these people still emailing around the Shamu story (which isn't even, like, about Shamu) weeks after it ran in the newspaper? I suspect they are the types who like "Caveman" comedy routines (you know, "men are hunter-gatherers, that's why they like to flick from channel to channel with the remote control"), and who watch those dumpy-guy-cute-wisecracking-wife sitcoms that I find so puzzling. They are also, unfortunately, probably not very good at talking to their mates. "Shamu" is terribly cynical about heterosexual relationships--the premise, after all, is that these couples would get along better if they communicated through animal-training techniques. The contractor story, meanwhile, at least allows for the idea of some common ground between men and women. You know, plus the sex and all.