Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

ones who still stay in touch because, okay, controlling him is a thrill I just can't give up. All right, all right. He's used to it. His parents pushed him around his whole childhood, and now so does his wife.

And, of course, there's the kid you're always trying to ditch. It's an unwritten law of childhood that works all over the world. And the best part about it? The kid always comes back to the group. And you welcome him-so you can ditch him later.

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Our basic transportation was the bicycle. Talk about a boundary stretcher. You could actually go places. Six blocks. Sixteen blocks! In any direction.

I liked meeting new kids, or going to the house of the weird boy from the strange part of town who wanted me to come over after school. I'd have to ride my bike. It was okay playing over there-but still sort of uncomfortable. What did 'playing' mean, anyway? You just messed around in his room. Sat on his bed, then the end of his bed, under his bed, talking about nothing, playing with his stuff, realizing he didn't have very cool stuff- well, maybe a couple of cool things.

The worst thing was that strange people's houses always smelled weird. Right away I'd be thinking, 'Wow, something died in here. It's that carpet. No, that old lamp. Both of them. No, it's that woman. Oh, she's his mom. No, his grandma. Her legs are weird. What a weird dog. What are they cooking? I want to go home. I don't like it here anymore.'

So I'd get on my bike and leave. I'd be pedaling furiously until I'd cross a familiar street and, once back in safe territory, suddenly breathe easier. But I knew I'd crossed a boundary.

Bikes were also cool.

The rich kid always had the ultimate bike, right? When I was young it was a Stingray: banana seats and a sprocket the size of a quarter. You could do wheelies, but you didn't want to go long distances because the small sprocket meant you'd have to pedal like a little clown at a Shriners' convention. I asked my mom to buy me one. She wouldn't, so I made my own. Got a Stingray frame and handlebars, bought a banana seat. Really cool. Then I spraypainted it purple. That's when it stopped being cool. No way you could compete with a Schwinn paint job. They knew what they were doing.

Barry Phillips had a Bendix, with the two?speed rear axle. You'd push the pedals backward quickly to change gears, like you were using the brakes. What a marvelously simple piece of machinery. You really don't need fifteen speeds: 'Oh gosh. There's a hill, lovey. I think it's an eight. No, a six.' What is this-Tonya Harding's skating score?

Today, it's the same sort of overkill in cars. I have a car stereo that will leave messages. It's got a manual two inches thick. The manual that came with my wife is smaller.

One thing I don't understand about bikes is why boys' bikes have a bar between the seat and the handlebar, and girls' bikes have that V. Isn't it backward? You'd think the boys' would have no bar. If you fell off the pedals going over a bump, at least your balls wouldn't say an immediate hello to a piece of iron. (And I think we've all said hello to a piece of iron at one time or another, right?)

Of course, if a boy fell off a girls' bike and didn't have a bar to stop him-hmmmmm-I guess he'd drop down and have his balls mashed in the pedal crank and his face dragged on the sidewalk. Maybes the bar isn't such a bad idea after all.

Of course, if a girls' bike had a bar, she'd have to step over it and any healthy adolescent boy would probably give up a week's allowance to stand behind her waiting for a cheap buffalo shot. I know I'm right.

That explains bikes. But many boy?girl mysteries remain. Like boys' and girls' shirts. They button differently. What's that all about? Is it so you'll know when you're wearing a girl's clothing? 'Well, will you look at that? I've put on my wife's blouse again.' You'd think you'd know because of the floral print. But it's a fun look. Summery.

One thing you'll never hear boys-or for that matter, men-saying is, 'Charlie, that's a good?looking shirt. Kind of a fun thing. And those trousers make your ass look nice. Can I borrow those?'

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To young boys food is simply fuel. You run low on fuel and you don't run around very well. We'd get hungry about three?thirty every afternoon. Power?up time. We'd go right for the main energy source: sugar. Two big Cokes, Twisters, Twinkies, Hostess cupcakes. On school days we'd have a thirty?two?ounce RC Cola, a couple Pixie Stix, a Snickers, and some Wax Lips just to keep our mouths busy until we got home.

Sugar may seem like just sugar to an adult or the doctor, but I was much more sophisticated. I knew the value of consuming something from every major food group in the sugar category. Your sucrose, your fructose, your glucose. Processed sugar of any kind. Your cakes, gums, caffeine?based sugars. (Caffeine, as you know, runs through the entire chocolate family.)

There are, however, sugars you don't combine: Lik?M?Aid and root beer, Jujubes and Chunkies, Dots and Raisinets, Pez and Sugar Smacks. Chocolate milk is better with cakes, but if you're tough, you can down a Coke with a brownie. For a grown man, that's like scotch and peanuts. It goes, but not real well. Cake and beer is another one. That's why adults hate having birthday parties. Combining sugar?frosting roses with vin rose is a lot worse than getting old.

My mom didn't like to cook, and my dad didn't barbecue. Good lyrics for a Johnny Cash tune, and true. But after my little brother died of starvation, my mom straightened up and began to cook for us. This noble attempt sadly resulted in three more of us dying. Kidding. . I'm kidding.

When my mom did cook, she really went all out to please our palates. For instance, can someone please explain to me about stewed tomatoes? What are they all about?

And what's a cubed steak? Mom fixed it every Saturday night

'Oh, hey, it's Saturday night. Lucky us!' It was a gnarly piece of beef with a pattern on it, like it was beaten with a tire iron. Gotta love that gristle every other bite. Mom would lovingly accent the

cubed steak with, you guessed it-stewed tomatoes. We called this gourmet delight bloody brains and shoe leather. 'Oh please, Mom can't I invite a school friend over for dinner?'

To be fair, Mom made great sloppy joes, but never often enough. We would have been happy eating hamburgers and hot dogs all our lives. But no. This is incontrovertible proof that there something

wrong with adults: they think you won't be happy having the same thing every night for dinner. Tell that to my daughter when she's debating between macaroni for dinner or macaroni for dinner.

My wife, by the way, is an excellent cook, but after years of marriage, my menu requests are seldom met. When we first dated, she'd actually ask me what I liked. Sound familiar? When you first date a woman, you get a lot of things that you'll never get again. She once made me twice?baked potatoes. I'd never had one. You take all the stuff out of the potato, cook it, and put it back in. I ate six of them. I said, 'You keep cooking like this, I'll marry you.' I married her. I haven't had one since.

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As a kid you're dependent on a female, and that would be Mom. She cares for you, comforts you, and nurses you when you're hurt. Think about it, men. When those essentials are covered, you get to go out and play. Even today.

When you scraped your knee, Mom never panicked. You panicked-and loudly, as soon as you saw the iodine or Mercurochrome. 'Hey, Mom, why not just pierce my chest with a kitchen knife?'

Then it was Band?Aid time. There were all shapes and sizes. There were big pads for the really cool injuries that usually had a neat story attached. There were the standard 'flesh'?colored Band-Aids that ingeniously matched the skin color of nobody. By the way, weren't 'flesh?colored' Band?Aids and 'flesh?colored' crayons just a bit racist? And what the heck were those little round dot?shaped Band?Aids for? You certainly couldn't let your friends catch you wearing a Band?Aid dot! Very bad for the image. (Tip for later: Never cover a zit with a Band?Aid dot. Everyone knows what's going on.) And what about Band?Aid removal? What a drama. Although my sister believed in the very slow incremental method, I preferred the popular one, two, three. . RRRip approach.

When you were sick, Mom was there. Sometimes she even believed you were sick. Who's to say if your stomach really hurt or not? I used to tell my mom I had a sore throat and she'd look inside and say, 'Okay.' I was amazed every time I got away with it. Now I realize, it always looked red. Throats are red. I've looked at my daughter's throat and said, 'God, is that red.'

Moms. They're so amazing. They're incredibly caring women who, despite the most torturous and agonizing