Tag: men and women

Gender Vacations?

I’ve said it a million times: “I’m so pissed that I’m never going to view my own time as history!”  I’m getting close — after all, the moon landing was 50 years ago — but naaaah! — it’s not quite the same.  History is what you don’t remember.  Anyway…  Of course, the other side of that coin is I’m not going to be around for all the cool future stuff either, and that pisses me off even more.  Imagine! – 3D social media, teleportation, interspecies communication?  Too cool!  But the coolest thing about the future is there’s going to be – Gender Vacations.  Yeah, it’s gonna happen!  Trust me, some enterprising young person is going to figure out how to do it, and they are going to be richer than Bezos because there isn’t a single person on this planet who wouldn’t pay huge coin to take one. 

Think about it!

Hey, girls!  Tired of doing 4 jobs every day — underpaid employee, wife, mother, self-appointed care giver?  Why not take some time off?  Why not get away from it all with a two-week vacation – as a man?  That’s right!  For two weeks, forget about the long lines at public toilets: there won’t be any.  Put away your punitive underwear, and just pick a side.  Scratch whatever you want, whenever you want!  Feels good, doesn’t it?  Isn’t it time you pampered yourself and had somebody else make the sandwich after sex?  Plus, for two weeks, you can be as assertive as you like — disagree and even argue if you want to — with no social ramifications.  You’ll be able to go to a bar and have a nice, quiet drink without a parade of losers hitting on you.  Waste an afternoon on the sofa, watching a ballgame with your hand down your pants.  Even go out on a date with a quick shower and a comb through your hair — because as a man you’re not a wrinkled crone – you’re rugged!  You know you’re curious.  Why not make the call?

Hey, guys!  Tired of getting blamed for everything that’s wrong with the world, tired of walking the tightrope between macho and wimp every day, tired of half the world looking at you as if you were an apprentice stalker?  You don’t need this stress.  Time to take some me time with a two-week vacation – as a woman.  Throw away that wooden suit you’ve been wearing, add some style and let somebody else open doors, for a change.  Discover how an adjustable neckline can get those grunt jobs at work done — without lifting a finger.  At home, harness the awesome power of “Yes, dear!” to hang a picture, wash the car, rearrange the furniture and so much more.  You’ll be able to tell jokes again, say hi to children and even give people compliments – all without fear of somebody freaking out and calling you a pervert.  And speaking of freaking out?  Go ahead! – anytime you like.  You won’t be held responsible.  Remember, you’ve got hormones now, and they’re always to blame.  So, maybe it’s time you stopped twisting yourself in knots trying to figure out what women want and try being one for a couple of weeks.  You’ll be glad you did!

Operators are standing by!

Pneumonia!

pneumoniaFor 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..

Women Get More Cool Stuff Than Men

cowgirlI am painfully aware that writing about gender in these troubled times is like being the goalie on a javelin team, but I’m going to do it anyway.  Stereotypes be damned!  The truth has to be told: women get way more cool stuff than men.  Yes, I realize there’s the whole punitive underwear problem and, beyond Barbie, toys for girls generally suck. But look around you: women have tons more fun with life than men do.  Why?  ‘Cause they get all the good stuff.  Here’s a selection of evidence to prove it.

Sleeves — Women get more sleeves than men.  There are bell sleeves, cap sleeves, raglan sleeves, lily-point sleeves, bishop sleeves etc., etc., etc.  In fact, according to one source, there are over 40 different sleeves available to women.  And what do men get?  Long sleeves and short sleeves!

Hats — Put a hat — any hat — on a woman and you’ve got instant sexy.  Put a hat on a man, and unless his name is Indiana Jones, Humphrey Bogart or Che Guevara, you’ve got a candidate for Geek Of The Week.

Colours — Women get all the colours.  Men get several shades of mud.  Don’t believe me?  How many men do you know who are climbing the corporate ladder in a 3-piece, electric-blue hounds-tooth suit with  ruby red shoes and matching belt?

Hair — Even Stephen Hawking can’t calculate the infinity plus one number of things women can do with their hair.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the chromosome patch, men have the faux hawk, the man bun and bald.

Shoes — I’m not even going to touch this one.

Stories — See a well-dressed woman dining alone in an expensive restaurant and there’s an elaborate story there somewhere.  See a well-dressed man dining alone in an expensive restaurant and … he just got dumped … like, 20 minutes ago.

And finally:

Girl’s Night Out — Girl’s Night can range from a drunken pub crawl through the streets of Maribor, Slovenia — where someone ends up with her panties in her purse — to Ramen Noodle Night with sweatpants, jasmine tea and vintage Ryan Gosling videos.  On the other hand, since the beginning of time, Boy’s Night has always involved a game, junk food, alcohol and the eruption of various bodily gases.

I rest my case!