Shooting a man

I'm working on tonight's class, the second meeting of Hands-On Space Astronomy. This is a course that aims to help people to explore Astronomy in a little bit more depth once they have a little basic knowledge. It relies on the free availability of vast quantities of data from space missions and also some ground-based observatories, and simple tools for accessing, manipulating and combining these data, all tied together nowadays in so-called Virtual Observatories. Some of these tools and the interfaces to them have changed a bit since I last taught the course. Also we would always want to revise a slightly unconventional course like this each time we run it: what went well; what should have been done differently? So there's a bit to prepare and think about.

I needed a breath of air and a wee break from this work so I popped out and went to a slightly more distant sandwich shop than usual. On the way I passed a shop selling home furnishings, devices for the kitchen, etc. A sign in the window said, "No woman ever shot a man while he was doing the dishes." Now, I don't believe this. I think if a woman had decided to shoot a man, while he was doing the dishes would be one of the better moments. His attention would be on the sink, soap suds and what lay beneath them, the thorough removal of fatty grime, etc. He might not even hear the arms-bearing woman come up behind him, far less realise her intention.

You might argue that a man who regularly does dishes is less likely to find himself in the cross-hairs. That might be true but "less likely" does not mean, "never". If the woman has made up her mind to do the deed, an episode of dish-washing won't change her mind. It will only present an opportunity.

Do women themselves sometimes get shot by men while doing the dishes? A whole other, potentially fertile field of discussion is left barren.

So on the whole I will be very surprised if no man anywhere has ever been shot while doing the dishes. Now back to Hands-On Space Astronomy.