When my wife and I walked back from the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to our car parked in an underground car park, I was struck with a sad realisation. My wife is truly a better dwarf than I am. Dwarves rock! I would choose a dwarf any time of day over a "who-maaan" or gods-forbid an elf. Nonetheless, I have proven time and again that I am no good as one :(
As we have seen in the last two films of the Hobbit and read in countless fantasy books, dwarves will never get lost underground (as a matter of fact, anywhere with a ceiling above them), but above ground they are, in fact, worse than your average city idiot. Orientation by the stars. Nah. But orientation underground in near darkness with a ceiling above their heads. Where is east? That way. No problem-o.
The underground car park, I spoke of, is a veritable maze. I kid you not, it officially only has two levels (or is it three?), but you can go down 5 flights of stairs and still only be at -1. Of course, it has a million and two entrances and we entered through a different one than we left. We came underground and suddenly I was lost. I had no idea where to go. It wasn't that everything looked the same. Quite the opposite, everything looked unfamiliar, wherever I turned!
My wife to the rescue! Quote: "It's easy, just go left there. See those stairs. Down one. Turn right, walk straight for a bit and then to our left will be our car."
I felt like crying that moment.
With sadness, I remembered back to our time in Manchester (UK) together, where we sometimes had to go to the Arndale Center. It is a circular shopping mall with two levels. At no point in that British crystal labyrinth was I ever able to find anything! I think she enjoyed meeting me there, because I would enter at a random entrance and it doesn't matter where, I will find the longest way to the meeting point. Instinctively turning the wrong way was my forté. My wife on the other hand oriented herself by landmarks entirely hidden to me. Benches with a chink in the metal. Shoe shops. The shop with all the women dressed in pink. The list of absuridities goes on and on.
There are many examples like the two above. I am sure, she would have a field day in Glasgow's Waxy O'Connors. However painful it is for me, I must admit to myself. My wife may be as beautiful, graceful and elegant as an elf, but on the inside there pounces the heart of a dwarf in the (seductively pretty). Whereas in mine, ploppers the meager heart of a mere human :(
