About six years ago, I pulled out of my garage and I was not paying attention and clipped off my side view mirror. The bill for repairs was $200. For the intervening years I was "oh so careful" and it was a triumph of man over the machine. Last Thursday, as I was taking my car out of the two-car garage, it happened again. As I backed out, my wife screamed "I lost an earring."

I lost all sense of my side view mirror, until I heard a sickening crash. My side view mirror was dangling helplessly off the side of my car. "Not again!" I screamed. I was distracted from edging out carefully and I would have to pay the piper once more.

You remember the Henry Higgins line in My Fair Lady. You spend your time in the theater searching for a glove. Then the clincher, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"

Men blame the women in their lives for a whole panoply of faults. This is not fair, but it is the way of the world very often. Women get their licks in too and many a hen-pecked husband is the result of constant irritation by his wife. I guess there is never a perfect balance.

I promise I will never, never, never fall into the same trap again. Easy to say, but like a New Year's resolution, difficult to accomplish. This time, it only cost $186.83. I was very satisfied with Madden's Auto Body and Glass on Woodbury Road in Hicksville.

In just one day the damage was rectified.