Sometimes People Make Statements in Bad Faith That Don’t Deserve to Be Evaluated as Fact
We give this statement 50 percent. That feels even-handed, right?
How to Speak Woman
I HAVE READ ALL THE critiques of women’s vocal mannerisms and tics. I have come to a few simple conclusions, which I have distilled into the following thirteen tips.
1. Never speak in run-on sentences. Use only sentences that Hemingway would use. Speak curtly. Speak of fish and fighting, and the deep wisdom no woman can know. Speak of hills and strong liquor. Speak of Scott Fitzgerald and his fatal weakness.
2. Never let the word “just” pass your lips. If you find that you have used the word “just” even once, smite mightily about yourself with a mace, lest anyone live to tell the tale and lose you the respect of your colleagues.
3. Never end sentences with a question mark, even when you are asking a question. This may baffle and alarm everyone around you, but better that than the alternative.
4. In fact, avoid questions entirely, lest someone hear you speaking with a rising inflection and take away your place in the workforce. When you wish to ask a question, have a man ask it for you, to save face.
5. Never speak with a rising inflection. If you must speak with any inflection at all, speak with a falling inflection.
6. Do not use baby talk, not even to babies. Especially not to babies. Avoid speaking to babies in general, as they do not control the workforce and cannot offer you advancement.
7. Never apologize. Not even once. Not for yourself, and certainly not for America. Never let “sorry” leave your lips. If you wish to play the board game of that name, point at it and growl.
8. Never creak. You should sooner croak than creak.
9. When you form words at all, which should be but rarely, make certain they come out in a low, gravelly growl, like a hungover Joe Cocker who has just gargled shards of glass. Strive to sound like a cigarette would sound if it could talk. Strive to rumble like thunder that has taken a class to counteract its vocal fry. If you sound like the love child of Darth Vader and a female Ent, you have achieved your purpose. Speak so that those who hear you wonder aloud and say, “Surely this speaker is a man. Or a grizzly bear who has swallowed a man whole.”
10. Most of the time, make no sound at all. Let your actions speak for you. Speak with your fists, never your hands.
11. In general, communicate only by tearing off the arms of those with whom you are displeased. Wave these arms like flags, in a kind of gruff semaphore. To express feelings, roll rocks downhill with rude emoji carved on them.
12. Remember, be confident. You are woman. Hear you roar. It is the only vocalization you can freely make lest you be hounded off the airwaves and out of the workforce.
13. GRRRRR ARRRG. GRRRRRR. RRRRR.
July 28, 2015
How to Parent Wrong
THERE ARE SO MANY PARENTING fads, it is hard to keep them straight!
Here are your options.
Helicopter Parenting: You hover frantically over your child at all times, shredding pigeons in your rotating blades.
Free-Range Parenting: Your children eat grass and roam at will so that their flesh will become more tender and juicy than that of their cage-bred counterparts.
Lawnmower/Snowplow Parenting: You knock all obstacles out of your child’s path like a—bulldozer? Why didn’t they go with bulldozer when naming this parenting style? Lawnmowers and snowplows aren’t the same thing at all! Make sure you’re doing the one that is right for your climate.
Juggernaut Parenting: You knock all obstacles out of your child’s path while shouting “I’M THE JUGGERNAUT!”
Tiger Parenting: You are maniacally devoted to your child’s excellence in all things and will fight your child tooth and nail until that child gets into Princeton.
Free-Range Tiger Parenting: Your children can roam at will, but must drag pianos with them to practice.
Free-Range Helicopter Parenting: Your children can roam at will, but you hover overhead in a helicopter.
Free-Range Attachment Parenting: Your children can wander anywhere at will, and you just happen to be there too.
Tiger Attachment Parenting: To help with discipline, your child is attached to a live tiger.
Helicopter Tiger Parenting: OH GOD, WHO’S PILOTING THAT THING? It’s a BIG CAT!
Ironic Hipster Parenting: You’re screwing up your child on purpose.
Locavore Parenting: You only eat local children.
Trump Parenting: “I’m the best parent, the greatest, and your childhood is going to be huge!” you tell your child, repeatedly, for eighteen years, offering no other guidance.
Parenting 90X: This parenting technique looks a lot more doable when the guy in the video does it.
Outsource Helicopter Parenting: You hire someone else to micromanage your children’s lives.
Lawnmower Attachment Parenting: You chew up life before feeding it to your child.
French Parenting: Where are my children? Give me wine.
Dickens Parenting: Children are orphans.
Disney Parenting: One parent is mysteriously deceased but the other one is voiced by James Earl Jones.
Lion Parenting: Everything the light touches is yours, you tell your child, before being stampeded to death by wildebeests.
Backseat Parenting: You let the child make all his own decisions, then second-guess them.
Joan Crawford Parenting: All
