Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man
Page 15
If I cleaned the house I'd want a vacuum cleaner with a motor on it, not one of these dainty supersucks. I am sick of the pitiful excuses for vacuums my wife keeps coming home with just because they're on sale and she saved fifty bucks.
One day I got off my butt and went to a Holiday Inn and asked the housekeeping chief, "What do you use every day to vacuum fifteen floors?" Turns out the answer was "industrial." They used a cross between a sandblaster and a pinball machine. It was chrome, it had rubber bumpers. The wheels were rubber, not plastic with ball bearings. It had a leather bag, not a paisley bag. You could take the bottom off this machine and see the work that had gone into it. It had a purpose. Someone thought about using it and not just selling it so that two months later you have to buy another.
I'd have bought one, but the manufacturer said I could only purchase these units in lots of a hundred-like any fine hotel. Rather than remodel my house to add a sixty‑room motel wing, and hire a full‑time cleaning staff, I settled for a shop vac. I'm so proud of it that I don't hide it in the closet. I leave it out. When people ask, "Where's your vacuum?" I just say, "You're sitting on it."
Men and women will do the same job in completely different ways. I don't like to wash dishes individually-as if I liked to wash them at all. I'd sooner have a sinkful of dishes and wash them all. But if I leave one unwashed dish in the sink, my wife acts as if I'd cut off her mother's arm.
She says I leave messes everywhere. I've tried to explain.
"Well I can't stop to clean up right behind my footsteps every minute. But I'll be back that way, and once the footstep is brown enough, I'll get at it."
A comic I know, Diane Ford, put it best: A woman works her ass off all the time. The guy does two things around the house and he's got to show her: "Honey, look! I fixed the screen! And look over there: I washed my dish! I put my shirt up!"
What can the wife say? "Well, why don't we put a little star on the refrigerator?"
Honestly, I don't try to get away without doing my part. I'd just rather not do it. But once you've reached a certain level of home cleanliness, it's hard to go backward. My wife is an absolute neatnik, which makes our house very pleasant to live in.
Except when I'm there.
- -
Women depend on men to defend them, particularly from insects. If I'm in another room and hear my wife scream, I know that either some miscreant has managed to navigate our formidable security net, not to mention the surplus land mines I laid around the lot perimeter, or she's seen a trail of ants.
The last time this happened the procession ran through our bedroom all the way back into the master closet. It looked like columns of Allied troops marching into Berlin in 1945. I don't really have a problem with ants myself. They do what they do and that's okay. But for my wife's sake, I decided to encourage them to conduct their business elsewhere.
The first thing I noticed was that a couple dozen had broken off from the main group only to return with my wife's tiny $3,000 purse. It was actually kind of cute. They looked so proud. I didn't have the heart to tell them that nothing would fit inside.
An ant is a worthy opponent. It can jump a distance equal to forty times its length. And they're indestructible. You can fling them across the room-which would be like throwing me across the streetand it doesn't faze them. They just run away. And they're so stupid they don't know they can't walk upside down.
That is why I'm glad they're not the size of dogs. If they were, they could easily lift me up and carry me off. I know this because as I embarked on my mission of destruction I saw one ant running for cover, carrying a huge piece of bread. Compared to his fellow troops, he looked like the hero of the raid. He had the biggest booty, was decorated with medals, and was so excited he was going in circles, shouting, "Look at this! We'll eat for months." Back and forth. I brought my foot up. He gazed up at me. His antennae drooped. "No. Naw. No." His little ant paw went up. "Please. This is my moment. The bread. . the children. . my medals. ."
Squish. Immediately a subgroup surrounded him. One was wearing robes and a cross.
I felt bad killing those ants. It was a holocaust, if you ask me. They'll be talking about this in their community for a thousand ant years. I hate thinking about the karma I've earned. But we can't live together. Sorry. So I wiped out an entire generation of ants. On the other hand, another generation will be born any minute now.
I don't like spiders either, but the more I learn about them, the more my fear turns into respect. I have not killed one purposely for a long time. I take them out in jars, leave their webs around for three or four years. What do they do with the webs once they're done? Do they recycle? The up side is that I've not been bitten by one lately. I think they tell each other: "Tim's okay. He could have killed a million of us. No bullshit. Did you read about the ants?"
- -
Men's and women's magazines are very different. What's most interesting about women's publications is their preoccupation with men:
∙ How to tell if he's lying.
∙ How to stop his snoring.
∙ How to make him a better person.
The articles constantly emphasize a basic philosophy: If we can't live without men, let's at least try to change them.
Women get to be embarrassed, too.
∙ Six exercises for your love muscle.
∙ Sports medicine and your love muscle.
The first was actually on the cover of Cosmo. Helen Gurley Brown scares me.
Men's magazines do not constantly give guys advice on how to deal with her period. Or on how to stop her bullshit from getting to you. Or on how to change her.
Men's magazines reveal that men tend to mind their own business. We care about women, even celebrate them. We also celebrate the geeky guy who gets the beautiful model. But that's about as far as it goes. Men's magazines don't offer one‑page quizzes to see if a couple is compatible. We don't ask if a marriage can be saved. We don't offer quick makeup tips. Men's magazines are more about fashion and getting ahead in business. I think biker magazines are the only men's publications that deal seriously with women, as in "How to make your chick look tough on your Harley."
I have some advice for women who are absorbed in women's magazines: Read a Road and Track now and then. Get a metallic flake‑paint job and some boss rims, and maybe you'll get our attention.
- -
Men like salty food, so you'll find us chowing down at red booth eateries like the Cock and Balls, the Cork and Cleaver, the Peach and Frog, the Slag and Bastard.
Women like anything with high‑quality service. I'm not really into great service. Food is still fuel to me. The French think of food as art. Americans invented fast food. Women like restaurants where they can lunch. Women lunch. Men eat-and that's just the word you can use in polite conversation. Once, I even went to a restaurant so expensive that only the men's menu had the prices.
Of course, I only went once.
- -
Men don't really like to dance. If you can drag us out onto the floor, we'll do it, but we don't like it. All dancing is to men is killing time.
"When are we going home? How long do we have to do this until we can go home and do something else." Of course, there are always spoilers-guys who really get into dancing and make the rest of us look stupid.
"Look at them dance," my wife always says. She asks me all the time why we never go dancing anymore.
Why do I always have to remind her that my peg leg makes it a bit tough for me to do a carefree waltz?
We used to dance. When I was in college, discos popped up. I took Saturday Night Fever so seriously I even bought a white suit. At the time I had no idea that the seventies would turn out to be the cheesiest, most garish of all eras. Neck chains and more neck chains.
We learned to dance in groups. It was almost like countrymusic line dancing now. It was a great time. Instead of drinking or causing trouble, we danced. We'd come out of the club at two in the morning, sweaty, ready to sleep.
Not everyone was into disco. There were still poetry houses where many women went and talked, sang, and thought about silent desperation. But the rest of us, tired of the struggles of the sixties, just wanted to whoop it up before the eighties arrived and we had to make tons of money. We knew there was enough time for desperation later. We wanted to party while we were still too dense to realize how stupid we looked in Partridge family fashions.
- -
Got a second? I have a couple of fantasies I'm dying to share. I'm sure no woman's ever had this fantasy, which just goes to show you once again how different we are.
I want Scottish bodyguards, Ian and Ion and Ogor, dressed in kilts. Each would weigh three hundred pounds. We'd go to functions and these guys would say, "Aye! You gotta get back, laddie! Timmy's coming through!"
I also wonder, just for a goof, what would happen if I had tits. A guy like me, just so I could go to the beach and make my friends uncomfortable.
"God, Tim, man, you got some nice tits.'
And you can't really tell me to put a top on, because I'm a guy. I could walk around, take off my shirt, go into a garage. The mechanic would say, "God, you got nice tits! Has anybody ever said that? I don't know how else to say it. I'm not gay, but man, you got some tits. Nice tits."
I don't know why I brought that up.
- -
As we know, even though men call it bullshitting, men just out and out lie.
One reason men lie so much is that we get forced into it. It's the truth! Our lying increases the longer we're married because our mates ask us to do such ridiculous things. They're always suggesting changes in our behavior. In their realm, behavioral changes suggested by occasional lunch partners supposedly help women get better. To men it sounds like, "Are you trying to tell me what to do?"
For instance, women like to send thank‑you notes. Women send thank‑you notes for thank‑you notes. "Thank you for that thank‑you note, where did you get it? Let's have lunch and talk about our thank‑you notes."
A thank‑you note? Wait a minute, it was a gift, wasn't it? The Bible says you give freely. You give a gift, that's it. You don't want a Hansel‑and‑Gretel note back saying, "Thanks, I got it." This is a female ritual. They nag their husbands to do it, too.
"Send a thank‑you note."
"I don't want to."
"Send a goddamn thank‑you note."
"I don't want to."
"You send the damn thing, they're your friends."
Pretty soon a guy will say, "All right, All right, just stop yelling at me!" So you start lying, and so begins the routine: bitch, lie, bitch, lie, bitch, lie.
"Okay, I'll send one!" He's thinking: "I'm not sending anything."
Has it always been like that? Cro‑Magnon man? Neolithic times? Valley Gwanda. Grog having a big dinner. Unngghh. Later, a shrill cry from the woman: "Hey, who took a dump in the cave?"
"Who took a dump in the cave?" You know a man is about to lie when he repeats the question. It gives him a moment to think about it. These days it's no different.
"Honey, where's the Crockpot?"
"Our Crockpot?"
"No, the Pope's Crockpot."
"That'd be in Italy, wouldn't it?" Always be a smart‑ass if you can, because it'll take her mind off the original question. Men have to lie to get women off their backs.
Because women rely on a communication network, they abhor lying. Oh, they do it as well as men, but they hate it because it destroys the fabric of trust. Men know that, which is why they often call their lies bullshitting.
"Your grandfather did not leg wrestle with Mussolini."
"He was just bullshitting."
I have a friend who I don't believe has ever told the truth. Obviously the guy wasn't a tank squadron commander in World War Two, but if that helps his story along, what the hell? Sometimes he gets so immersed in these tales that, after describing his foray behind German lines, he'll also say, "And then, when I went to Vietnam.. "
Even I wouldn't want to defend that kind of bullshitting.
This kind of bullshit happens everywhere, even in publishing. Ever read The Celestine Prophecy, a bunch of New Age homilies disguised as a travelogue? Carlos Castaneda had something he wanted to tell us, but he knew we wouldn't believe it if he just told it to some professor at Cal State. So he made up this elaborate fiction. Is it lying? Bullshit? (Lawyers and actors make a living like this.) I think all three are the same.
This is probably why, no matter how many times I tell my wife I've been on the space shuttle, she doesn't believe me.
- -
Live with a woman for only five minutes, and any man will realize that each sex perceives the world in a completely different way, despite sharing the same five senses. Women are hypersensitive to many things, and dull as a brick to others. And they would say the same about us.
I can hear a machine bearing going out from about a mile away. I live in a big house, and once I could "feel" that the compressor on the furnace wasn't functioning correctly. I kept saying "What is that noise?"
My wife said, "What noise?"
"Can't you hear it? Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack. ."
Finally she said, "Well. . Suzie cleaned the furnace yesterday."
Cleaned the furnace! I knew it. I raced to the basement, took one look at the furnace, and it was obvious that somehow the insulation was torn off the filter. It was hanging down into the fan, making the fan very heavy on one side, which burnt out the bearing and made it chirp like a little bird in a big cat's mouth. Had it continued it would have frozen up and the furnace would have blown sky high and everyone would have died in an inferno hotter than the surface of the sun.
I'm not bullshitting. It's a good thing I was around to detect the problem. Even if my wife had heard the bearing, she would no more have taken the access panel off the furnace than anyone else in their right mind. But I removed it because once you get inside things aren't that difficult to figure out. And once I got back from the hospital, I was sure that that was not the thing I should have touched.
- -
Women have a problem with loud and soft. There's no sense buying a stereo with a woman in the house. The volume is never low enough unless it's off, unless they're drinking with their girlfriends.
"Honey? Turn that song up. I like that."
And then when her consciousness returns, "God, it's loud in here!"
"You asked me to turn it up a minute ago."
I hate the volume so low that I can hear my breathing.
The worst part is trying to watch TV late at night, in bed. Everything is always too loud. Not just the TV, which does tend to vary drastically in volume as I surf through the channels. I can't read either. Turning the page makes too much noise. I'd fart, but she might bolt up, half asleep, and dial 911.
I finally got a remote headset and solved the problem.
Now the flickering screen bothers her. Light, dark, light, dark. I thought people slept with their eyes closed.
I think my wife is sending me a message. "Either go to sleep at the same time, or do your stuff in the living room."
- -
Women are always cold. Chilly. "She's got a chill. Are you chilly? I'm a little chilly."
Men never even use the word. "I'm freezing my butt off. Okay?"
My wife says I'm clammy. We're in bed and she's going, "You're warm. You're clammy. I'm chilly. Isn't it a little chilly in here?"
I've always got a little sweat going, so there's not much I can do about it. Thank goodness they've now got cars that have smart dual thermostats. I keep my side cold and her side warm. She'd rather have the whole car warm just to make me uncomfortable, but that's a control thing.
If you want to see what I mean about these temperature differentials, try taking a bath with a woman. You could boil fish in a woman's bathwater. You've got to use your balls as a thermometer and do Sumo wrestler deep knee bends to see if your jewels get too warm. By the time you're in, the water's lukewar
m, and she's out.
My wife and I were in a Miami hotel once, trying to sleep, but running wind sprints to the room thermostat instead. When I finally turned it off it was 98 degrees. This was the middle of summer. Maximum humidity. It was so damn hot that I looked like I had malaria. I had a glaze on and there were yellow flies circling my head. I had to have a big bottle of quinine next to the bed.
Meanwhile, she's got the comforter up around her neck, going, "Are you chilly at all?"
I said, "Look at me. I've got cracked lips, I've got that desert pallor." I looked horrible. Turns out she was chilled because she had her period. As we know, a man can't understand that unless he's in a woman's body.
So don't even try.
- -
There's not a woman reading this book who's ever had her butt sticking in the air and a flame shooting out of it. This is a primary difference between women and men. Men will actually light a fart. Yes, I know you women are saying, "Wait, wait!" But it's true. Ask your husband.
Women don't think of things like this. I've known my wife twelve years and she hasn't ever farted, much less blown a torch out of her butt. At least, not that I know of. I don't ask her to tell me when it happens, either, but you'd think once every few years you'd hear a noise. And you know women don't say to other women, "Helen, come over here, pull my finger."
Can you imagine women lighting farts?
"Uh, Janet? Put a cap in it. This is a bridge club, not a refinery."
Women never go out of the house with a booger in their nose, either. Think about it. You've never seen it. I always have boogers in my nose. Before important meetings my wife says, "Tim. ."
"What? Oh oh." How do you miss a booger as big as a moose? Simple. I don't look in the mirror. I've got whiteheads, hairs growing out of my ears, and my wife is just like a baboon, plucking and pulling at me.