Pneumonia!

For those of you who noticed that WD was missing from the Internet last Tuesday, December 5, I have one word for you — pneumonia. For the first time in my life, Flu Season means a lot more to me than, “What a pain in the ass! I have to get jabbed in the arm again this year.” Apparently, this year’s flu is particularly vigorous, and in my case, it was downright rambunctious. In fact, it invited pneumonia over to play, and when the two of them got through with me, I ended up in the hospital. Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of health care, but this is the first time in a long time that I was the guy on the stretcher. My, my, my! How the medical profession has changed!

First of all, everybody is really, really young — so young “tummy” and “bum” are now acceptable medical terminology. It was all very much like High School Musical without the music. However, I know there were drugs involved because, at one point, I thought I was Gulliver lying there, watching a bunch of little people scampering around, acting liked they’d just captured a being from the land of the Old Buggers.

Second, everybody dresses the same. I remember when doctors wore white coats and looked like serious storks, nurses wore green scrubs, were two ax handles across the shoulders and could flip a 100 kilo man over on his stomach (tummy?) as easily as a fry cook flips bacon. These days, the guy in purple could be anything from a cashier to a cardiologist, and I have the feeling I gave most of my medical history to a very polite young person who was on her way to get her swollen wrist x-rayed. C’est la vie!

Finally, and this is a biggie, the wards have gone co-ed — and, even though I believe in a lot more gender equality than most people (for example, I’m a big fan of women in combat) I do not approve. Why? Because men and women don’t get sick the same way. When men get sick, they revert to their childhood and have one thing on their mind: IT’S ABOUT ME! However, when women get sick, they go a lot further back than that. They return to a time when plague, and famine and pestilence roamed the Earth, and women were the dominant gender. This was long before the trauma and drama of shaming and blaming and feminine hygiene, at a time when serious girls didn’t get pushed around by sleazy Red Carpet Romeos who thought they had an Oscar in their pants. (Kate Hepburn dealt with guys like Sam Goldwyn, she would have laughed Weinstein off the planet, and Ava Gardner probably would have introduced him to her size 5 patent leather slingbacks — but I digress.)

The reality is, sick women are the busiest beings on the planet because, for millennia, they had to be — or our species would have died out. Think about it! Give a man a cold and you get a useless mass of whining, crying and complaining — unable to defend himself. Give a woman a cold, and you will get a clean house, the laundry done, the car washed, a gourmet meal, two kids bathed and in bed and a pot of chicken soup for the guy on the sofa, with the sniffles — and that’s all after she’s come home from work. So, putting men and women in the same hospital room is just throwing fuel on both fires.

Let me demonstrate. I was in the hospital, battling the worst strain of influenza this planet has seen in 50 years, with a whack of pneumonia on the side, and when I got out, I discovered I’d gained weight. Impossible? No! You see, every night the girls from beds 1 and 2 would sneak down to the nurses’ station to use the microwave. They’d come back with batches of homemade cookies, and we’d all watch Riverdale. I was so sick I could barely eat seven per episode..

Feminism Doesn’t Stand A Chance

Like it or not, folks, despite our best efforts, here in 2017, feminism doesn’t stand a chance. Gender equality might be a wonderful ideal, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon because men and women don’t get killed, dismembered or injured the same way — in the movies. The fact is, as long as we maintain our Neo-Victorian attitude toward violent entertainment, gender equality will remain a distant dream. Let me explain.

Shooting — When minor male characters get shot in films, their guts are splattered across three walls, half their chest is missing and their arteries are pumping enough ketchup to sicken Dracula’s sister. If the action’s close enough, they fly backwards through a plate glass window, bounce off the windshield of a car and end up in the gutter with their head caved in. When minor female characters get shot — actually, minor female characters seldom get shot on camera — but if they do, it’s usually because they’ve caught a stray bullet that causes nothing more than a vague look of surprise and a spreading red stain. (FYI, the recovery rate for female characters from lethal gunshot wounds is astronomical.)

Fire — When men get set on fire in film, they run around, flaying their arms and screaming like a berserk barbeque briquette. Women are instantly incinerated — no fuss, no muss and very little clean-up.

Torture — When men are tortured in the movies, they’re hanging by their thumbs. The bad guys are punching the hell out of them while simultaneously zapping them with 500 volts, hacking away with a machete and blowing cigar smoke in their face. There’s tons of slobbering and swearing and crying and hollering, and this goes on for at least three scenes — while the good guys are racing to the rescue. Women, however, seldom get past the sinister music and the initial scream of anticipation before the camera cuts to the next scene — where they’re found half-naked in an isolated wooded area (shallow grave optional.)

Dying — When men die, there’s no coming back. This guy’s been shot 4 times, stabbed, hit by a truck, blown up by 2 mortars and a grenade and dropped off a 12-storey building. His face looks as if it’s done 12 rounds with a K-Tel meat tenderizer, and both legs are either missing or bent around like a Bavarian pretzel. He’s coughing and spewing and spitting up god-only-knows-what while he vainly struggles to choke out his last words. When women die, they are normally on their back, their head comfortably resting or cradled in the arms of … you get the idea. There’s a tiny smear of blood from the corner of their mouth and they say something like “I’m so cold.” before their head slumps sideways and their eyes close — makeup completely intact. Honestly, I’ve fallen asleep with more fanfare than that.

Let’s face it, people! The only time women get any screaming-ass agony in the movies is during childbirth. And if that isn’t the final sexist kick in the head, I don’t know what is.

It’s sad, but until men and women get their heads blown off with some kind of equality in movies, feminism will remain merely a hope and a promise.

Vive La Différence!

I like women. This isn’t just heterosexual brag: I actually like the company of women. I was blessed with the coolest thing in the world — sisters — which, as everybody knows, are moms without the mean streak. So, I grew up with women. I understand that the battle for gender equality is more than just who puts the toilet seat where. However, I also know that women are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable traits that make them totally different from men. Folks, try as we might to commit gendercide on our society, the two sexes are different. Until we recognize that, there can be no equality. To that end, here are some inconvenient truths. (But always remember that stereotyping people is a dangerous practice– especially when it works.)

Male sexuality is a dart game. A man throws his darts. They penetrate the board. He adds up the score, mentally compares it to that of every other man on the planet and spends the rest of his life lying about it.
Female sexuality is a Rubik’s Cube. There are an infinite number of combinations, but only one or two actually solve the puzzle to anybody’s satisfaction. Playing with a Rubik’s Cube is both fascinating and frustrating — and addictive. And, BTW, just because you own the Cube doesn’t mean you know the correct combination.

Women see an elegant woman dining alone and think there must be a sad story there somewhere. Men, on the other hand, think, “What the hell! It’s worth a shot.”
Men see a handsome man dining alone and think “Gay.” Women, on the other hand, think. “Gay, but what the hell! It’s worth a shot.”

Women think weight loss is the first sign of a better life.
Men think weight loss the first sign of a terminal illness.

When women call each other “bitch,” ” skank,” or “whore,” they are angry.
When men call each other “ass wipe,” “crotch rot” or “numb nuts;” these are terms of endearment.

For men, women wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie is sexy.
For women, an Armani suit is lingerie.

Men believe that PMS doesn’t actually exist and women are just naturally bitchy in varying degrees.
Women believe that PMS is a monthly pain in the ass that, when properly manipulated, becomes a super-convenient emotional “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.

And finally:

Men think they have no idea what women want.
Meanwhile, women believe they know precisely what men need.
Both of them are wrong.

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