Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

guilty.

But I don't think so. When I call men pigs, they go, 'Yeah, we are!' We just don't speak up when the tube is putting us down. Instead, we use it as an excuse for even more odd behavior. So sue me.

Culture-okay, women-can demean men all they like, but just ask yourself who built the computer I'm writing this book on?

This question supports a prime masculinist theory: If women are always complaining about men, tell me who raised the men? Women made us what we are. If women want to take credit?-and it's due-for all their hard work of staying at home and raising the kids (a job deserving high pay), they should also accept the responsibility for strongly influencing the boys who largely create and dominate culture.

- -

Women are lateral thinkers. They have communities. They share information and help one another. They listen. At least that's what I thought I heard someone say once.

Men don't listen, particularly to women. This shouldn't be a big surprise. A woman will talk and talk and talk about some problem until a man cuts her off and says, 'Here's what I'd do.' Men are always giving advice out of their own experience. Men think vertically. Some guy is always bigger, badder, better. His car is nicer, his job more lucrative, his women prettier. Men live to vanquish those challenges. They don't mind helping a woman overcome her problems, if only she'll listen. Men want women to get on with their lives, so that they can go back to watching Combat reruns.

Women don't want to hear our advice. They don't want solutions to their crises. They just want an arm around their shoulders and a soft?spoken 'I understand. I feel the same way!' This is why women are better off being miserable in groups. Suffering doesn't seem to matter to women as long as they don't have to suffer alone.

If that's what women want, I'm not going to try to change them. After all, men are even bigger babies in the suffering department, especially when we're sick. However, I suspect women like that position of power. Besides, when they're in the next room, they can't hear our whimpers and moans too clearly.

'Tim? Did you say something?'

'Ohhhhhhh. Gaaack!'

'Just try and get some rest, dear.'

If I could change one thing about women it would be to stop them from mumbling when they walk around corners. They should finish conversations while they're looking at you.

'Oh, by the way mumble, mumble…'

'Yeah, yeah, the most important thing is mumble, mumble.'

My wife does this all the time, then she's gone. A week later she looks at me like I just killed a kitten and says, 'I told you all about that.' And I can't say she didn't, I just didn't hear it.

'I told you yesterday.'

'Yeah, but I was outside!' Actually, I was in the car, with the windows closed, leaving the driveway. She was standing in the doorway, and her lips were moving. I thought she was saying, 'You're a man's man. Hurry back. I've got a big surprise for you in the bedroom.'

What she was really saying was, 'And make sure you bring back some milk.'

- -

Why do women do all the sewing, while men are the tailors? Why are women the cooks, but men the chefs? When women remove stains, it's from shirts, pants, and carpets. When men remove stains, it's from granite facades, the Statue of Liberty's skin, or-ahem?-spray paint off a high school wall. When women clean, they use Pledge and wear yellow plastic gloves. When men clean they use sand and steam and wear yellow plastic protective suits and visors. Women clean sinks. Men clean nuclear reactors. A dollop of ketchup on a shirt does not make a man want to suit up to get it out.

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