Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

'Phhhttt.'

- -

Sometimes a man can learn something important from a woman.

I came in early one night from watching a Monday?night football game at a friend's. The ladies were in the house gathered in front of a Discovery Channel special on breast cancer. I didn't know what they were doing. I just saw breasts being groped.

'Yeah. You gals are a little hipper than I thought.'

You idiot!

Pretty quickly I had to sit there and shut up and learn about breast cancer. They say that if women, starting at age thirty?five, had a breast exam about once a year, breast cancer would be reduced by forty percent. I think one problem is that men don't realize how degrading the examination is for women. Have you ever seen a mammogram machine? It's like a drill press for tits.

'Hey, hey, hey! Get it outta there!'

I don't think a woman designed this machine. I'm glad they don't do penograms.

Or do they?

I don't want to know. The prostate exam is bad (and necessary) enough.

- -

The things that women will go through to make themselves beautiful for their boyfriends and husbands amazes me. Plucking their eyebrows. Bikini waxing. Ripping hair right off their crotches. This is something you will never see a man doing. That ball hair is staying right where it is. Even though we all gotta admit that ball hair is the ugliest spot on the planet Earth. There's not a woman alive who hasn't been scared to death of her husband naked bent over a bathtub. She wanders in and… 'AAAAAAHHHH!. . Oh, it's you. I thought a wildebeest had wandered in here or something. Honey, I love you, I really do, but I don't ever want to see that again!'

- -

There's something I want to make perfectly clear-now that Richard Nixon is gone, that phrase is up for grabs, isn't it? Dibs!??before I get into big trouble. It's a misnomer to call anybody 'yours.' Throughout this book, I'm always saying 'My wife.'

Laura is not my wife. She's just nobody else's wife.

'Hi, I'm Tim, and this is nobody else's wife, Laura.'

- -

I don't want to be flippant about this. This is a philosophical problem that strikes to the heart of the matter. It epitomizes the differences between men and women, between ideological groups, even countries. One way or another this is at the heart of all arguments: Seat up or seat down?

'Remember to put the seat down after you're done.'

'Why? Do you put the seat up after you're done?'

'Just put it down.'

'Why?'

Trust me, women will come up with a reason.

'It looks better down. It's gotta be down.'

'Yeah? Then I've always got to lift it up, or I dribble on the seat. .'

'Well, if you leave it down,' says my wife, 'then I've got to sit on it.'

Look, I can understand that in the middle of the night a woman doesn't like to accidentally fall into the can when the last thing she's thinking about is whether the seat is up or down.

But why is it my responsibility to put it down anymore than it's hers to put it up? I sit down, too, now and then.

Okay, okay. If seats were meant to be up, why would they make lids in the first place? All right? Is my macho withering before your eyes? The normal position is with the lid down. You don't leave car doors open so the next time you can just step right in.

But seat up/seat down speaks to a larger issue: Who is right, and who is wrong?

Speaking from a male perspective, it seems men are always wrong. Naturally wrong. Women will joke about it, like, 'Yes, you are, ha?ha?ha,' but women come from the position that they're right anyway and we're always wrong to begin with. They laugh it off, 'Don't let it bother you. It's really just part of your charm.'

Of course, the point of this book has been to have fun with those differences; have fun and move on.

the secrets men never tell women

Do I look stupid? Why do you think they're called secrets?

the family of man

Have a kid and everything changes. This will not be news to most of you, but it was news to me. Big news. I had heard those words over and over, and still I couldn't have anticipated the consequences. No one could have accurately described them to me, even though lots of people tried.

I'd like to share them.

And since this is my book and not yours, you'll just have to put up with my going on about this for a while. Or else I'm taking my bottles and diapers and going home, to put myself down for a nap.

See. Have a kid, and right away you start acting like one.

- -

We never tried to get pregnant. It just kind of happened. We knew we wanted kids, as a concept, but the lunatics inside both my wife and me were still scared, and maybe a bit selfish. It took us eight years even to get married. I thought, 'What would I do with a kid? What would a kid do with me?'

And then, one night, within a moment, my whole perspective changed. I was staying with an old friend from childhood, and her father was in town. We were sitting in her living room, laughing about something, and suddenly I noticed her father looking at her with what can only be described (though words cannot really describe the look) as a sparkling gaze of pride, love, and friendship. All at once he asked for a kiss and a hug. I said, 'I'll hug you, but a kiss is out of the question.' I learned later that he was speaking to her.

This ineffable moment between parent and child made me rethink everything. We knew-superficially-that having a child would change our lives, change sex, change everything.

Guess what? It's the best thing that ever happened to us. We wouldn't change a thing.

My reaction to the news that Laura was pregnant was screaming. Loud, sustained screaming.

My wife said, 'Is something wrong?'

'No, no. That's an excited scream.' Nuances can be so subtle.

In retrospect, the whole process was kind of fun. I've never had such manly feelings, both for her as well as about myself. Laura has never looked more radiant. There's something about how lovely pregnant women are that even makes you fall in love with pregnant strangers.

Of course, we were scared to death. Laura said, 'Now what do we do?' We worried: 'Oh, God, what if the baby doesn't make it? What if it's sick or deformed?' The terror is nonstop, even after they're born. Mostly after they're born.

When I got the news that we were expecting, I called my older brother and asked for his advice. He said, 'I'd suggest going out to dinner.'

'That's all you can tell me about having a kid?'

'I'm telling you: just pick a place right now and go out to dinner, because you will not be able to do this for a long, long time, and you don't realize how cool it is just to go out to dinner. Even if you