I just love it when a male columnist discovers, in writing, that women are different from men. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy … and patronized. My peeve of the moment is a recent column in the usually wonderful St. Petersburg Times by Roadlife columnist Steve Huettel, entitled Women travel so very differently from men. According to Steve–let’s patronize him and call him Steve, shall we?–women travel with such things as Clorox wipes for hotel bathrooms, “just in case” medicines, scented candles, blankets from home, even vases for flowers. Never mind the common-sense nature of being prepared for health issues; aren’t we sweet and cute and homey? My real complaint with this and other similar articles that tell women to not let their room number be spoken aloud, or not to travel with luggage that’s too heavy because it slows you down, is that they confuse women travelers with novice travelers of any gender. Maybe it’s just that the guys writing them (I use “guys” in the Dave Barry sense, as opposed to “men,” who know better) know that other guys will be insulted if there is any intimation that they don’t already know everything. Steve even says that some women travelers “observe rules of etiquette foreign to many men.” He does not explain. Maybe that’s because, as a guy, he can’t be bothered to understand women and knows that to other guys, nod nod wink wink, silly women doing thing guys don’t understand is the norm. In the words of the immortal Dave Barry, Steve, men and guys are not the same. Guys are funny. Men are responsible. And if someone is both funny and responsible? “That would be a woman.” — Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer