These are the facts. There is no way around them.
The big chunk of The Female Brain that's called The Past?
That's a gene men don't really carry. When it comes to things that happened five or ten or even eighteen years ago-we have no recollection. Unless we're talking about sports or The Godfather Part One and Two or the Vanessa Williams issue of Playboy magazine. Your old boyfriends? You could have had thirty-seven of them-the only one we care about is the one who came right before us.
But every guy has had the experience of getting into an argument with his chick and she falls off the deep end, spiraling forth from whatever it was you just did wrong to spouting out general admonitions like You Never Listen and You Always Pull This Same Old Shit and the next thing you know she says this:
Remember that time at Stephanie's birthday party four years ago when we were talking in the kitchen to her and you got a beer and went out into the living room and I was talking to Stephanie in the kitchen for like another half an hour and I came out to make sure you were okay and you were talking to that tall blonde with the big tits in the tight white sweater and I gave you a look and went back in the kitchen and Stephanie even noticed it and later when Stephanie was opening her presents and they brought out the cake when we were singing happy birthday to her I saw you say something under your breath to Big Tits and she laughed so I KNOW you were flirting with her and then Big Tits gave me a look like I just made your boyfriend pay attention to me and you denied it all the way home and then we didn't talk for like two days? Do you remember that?
And our response is almost always the same:
Who the fuck is Stephanie?
It ain't personal. It's just the way we are. I think we'd get a lot more done in this country if we finally could put to bed the idea that men need to be a lot more like women and vice versa. It goes against all science, math and common sense about the sexes.
Men claim women are always miserable-stay-at-home moms bitch about having to stay home, working moms bitch about having to work AND raise children, when they are not bitching about not getting paid as much as men.
Listen, let me make this as clear as the clear glass bottom of a just-Windexed-and thus as clear as clear can get-glass-bottomed boat: I'm not talking about single moms who have to work to feed their kids or moms who work as well as the dads because between the two of them they barely manage to feed and clothe and shelter the kids or moms who work a part-time job to help out with the bills that both her and her partner of choice are doing their best to keep from piling up.
My sister-in-law Judy worked as did my brother Johnny as did my sisters Ann Marie and Betsy and both of their husbands and they did so because they needed both incomes and you know who the full-time nannies were? My mom and Judi's sister Janie and any and all available nearby aunts.
I'm not talking about necessity.
I'm talking about the moms-and we all know them-who begrudge the baby and the time they should be spending with it because it's beneath or beyond them.
The moms who are not "fulfilled" by being a mom.
The moms for whom toting a kid is fine-if the kid's outfit matches their own or carrying a kid for twenty minutes or so lends them a worthy amount of caring cachet from the shallow set that follow what's in fashion. If kids are suddenly and ever-so-briefly back in style-then so are they.
Moms who find sitting and talking with other moms while their kids play together so boring that they would rather have a Nicaraguan nanny with no vested interest in the baby other than as a means to stockpile dollar bills change and coddle and burp it while mom is out power-lunching her way to a bigger office with bigger lunches and sleeker desks and seven more assistants they can assault with assorted lists and demands.
If Helicopter Moms are overinvolved and almost ever present-flying into schools and playdates and Little League games and soccer fields to primp and feed and urge and cheer and many times just check to make sure the kid is okay, then the women I'm talking about should be referred to as Jet Pack Moms.
Helicopter Moms fly in.
Jet Pack Moms fly OUT.
As soon as little Ashley shits her pants or toddling Todd erupts with vomit-Jet Pack Mom powers up and disappears. You want her to watch you climb up onto the couch? Sorry. Jet Pack Mom's out shopping. For shoes. For herself. You want her to teach you how to multiply two times two? Sorry. She's busy dividing up dumplings at a Best Friends Who Brunch At Barney's brunch. How about commiserating at the playground while you run and jump and skip and hop? Nope. She's hopped up on low-dose antidepressants to keep her fear of growing slightly older at bay. But when you might need a little extra oomph from the sidelines during your dance recital? If there are other moms attending whom talking to would help shorten or enhance her long walk up the society ladder, Jet Pack Mom will fly in and mingle with fury.
Helicopter Mom found breastfeeding to be a wonderful bonding experience.
Jet Pack Mom briefly loved her larger chest and contemplated augmentation and new dental bonding while the baby was bottle-fed formula.
Helicopter Moms fly in with hugs and extra pencils.
Jet Pack Moms pencil their kids and kid hugs in.
Helicopter Moms fret and worry about bullies and bad grades.
Jet Pack Moms worry about frown lines and labia reduction surgery.
Helicopter Moms dream long baby dreams and wake up thinking baby baby baby all day long.
Jet Pack Moms dream of appletinis and kid-free Caribbean vacations and ponder beachweather workouts all afternoon.
You know that dad you see doting over his daughter down by the plastic slide in the park every day?
He's not a Helicopter Dad.
He's just married to a Jet Pack Mom.
Here's the real deal: men are built for work, kids almost always want their mommies, if you decide to not have kids and just chase your career-hey, not getting promoted happens to almost everybody.
It used to drive me nuts when I was working in comedy clubs and some female comic would say something to the effect of "it's so hard to do this when you're a girl."
Oh really.
And standing up in front of drunken, combative assholes who paid twenty bucks each to get in and just ordered a round of tequila shots and beer that'll cost them another sixty-five bucks-which they think gives them the right to talk out loud while the person onstage tries to talk funny into an electric stick-which only makes THEM talk even louder-yeah, that's oh so easy for the rest of us.
It's a room full of morons who are shitfaced-it sucks for everyone.
It cracks me up when actresses have meltdowns leading to an increase in their medication because some edgy orange frock a wine-and-Klonopinswilling French designer convinced them to take a chance on led to getting named Worst Dressed Woman At The 14th Annual San Antonio Film Festival. Hey, I got picked as one of People magazine's Sexiest Men a few years back-which is a sign that either the apocalypse will shortly be upon us or Willem Dafoe absolutely refused to do the photo shoot-and within a few months the same magazine named me Worst Dressed Man At The Umpteenth Emmy Award Extravaganza. I guess a black shirt and red tie on the red carpet is grounds for getting slammed by Joan Rivers and the five gay men who help to hold her head up. Did I call my shrink? No-my brother saw it in the mag, called me up, we had a good laugh and I was happy they spelled my name right. Who gives a shit?
Women, that's who.
Every job has parts of it that are a giant pain in the ass-whether you carry a penis or a purse.
The Feminist Movement raised the expectations of almost every chick in this country forty-some-odd years ago and over the last few decades women have convinced themselves that men CAN and somehow HAVE changed and WERE willing to be different and more emotionally available and eager to work side by side with them and get paid the exact same amount of money.
No.
We are not changing we are not more emotionally available and we are more than willing to work side by side with you and get paid the same IF you can do the job.
Do you think any race car driver on the IndyCar circuit is in the least bit worried about Danica Patrick's recent win leading to a flock of ladies in flame-retardant pleather jumpsuits taking over their sport?
No.
Danica may eventually be joined by one or three or five more girls but the numbers will stop somewhere shortly after that because:
a. Most women do not know how to merge. And let's face it, if merging at thirty or forty miles an hour freaks you out or makes you even the slightest bit panicky, merging at two hundred and thirty miles an hour while bouncing off other automobiles and fighting for the lead spot just ain't gonna fly. My wife screams and slams on the brakes if a squirrel dashes out in front of her car. It takes her twelve minutes of deep breathing to get past a four-second episode of that-the first six minutes of which involve searching the rear and sideview mirrors to see if the rat with a tail might still be alive. Dale Earnhardt Jr. suddenly swerving in front of her on a banked oily curve? Two words: pulmonary embolism.
b. Talking while driving might seem like a keen attraction to females considering getting behind a race car wheel, but once they find out that all the chatter on the headset is limited to tire updates, fuel tank leaks and loud angry screaming? Not so much. They'd rather go back to forty-five in the fast lane while discussing bikini wax jobs and Barack Obama's teeth on the hands-free.
c. The raw DNA facts I mentioned in the prologue of this book.
Science has proven that women of child-bearing age have an actual biological resistance to taking any extreme risks-Elizabeth Berkley star-ring in Showgirls notwithstanding.
Annika Sorenstam worked out like a maniac and put on ten extra pounds of muscle before trying to challenge Tiger Woods and the top male golfers in the world to a fair-play championship round of golf a few years back and what happened? She hit it long, she hit it hard, she landed on each and every green with a chance to birdie or par and then-she three- 1 putted. Or four-putted. Or five-putted. She pitter-putted her way right out of the tournament and then cried at the sight of the first microphone that popped into her face because she is-in fact-a woman.
She could compete until the pressure got high, and putting on a PGA green? With thousands of people surrounding you and tens of millions watching on TV? It doesn't get much higher than that. It's what men like to call the "Eek! A mouse!" factor. Women react differently to certain things than men do. Mice, blood, gunfire-you name it. My wife is deathly afraid of mice. Me? Bats. Not baseball bats-the ones that fly. They don't make me cry or shriek. No time for that. Too busy fleeing.
Crying, of course, is the chief complaint men have about women in the workplace. Just ask Hillary Clinton. She was way behind in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary-until she cried. Then she gained a bunch of Empathy Points. Mostly from other woman. Not to mention Guilty Husbands Of Empathetic Women-who also voted for her because they were afraid their wives would shut down sexual access if they didn't. Don't laugh-I know at least three guys who voted for Hillary based on that actual situation. Shocking? Not really. I'm only surprised Hillary didn't bawl her way through the remaining forty-eight states. As a matter of fact, if she had changed her campaign motto from Blah Blah Something Change to Vote For Me Or Your Wife Won't Fuck You she would have had the election wrapped up at sunset on Super Tuesday. As Tip O'Neill once said-all politics is local. And for men, it doesn't get much more local than your crotch.
Which reminds me-every woman I have ever known seems to be utterly in an information blackout when it comes time for their period to arrive. They get bloated and angry and snippy and terse and if you ask them if they might be possibly getting their period? First they bite your head off and then they go-ohhh, maybe.
Believe me, if blood came out the end of my penis every month? I'd have the due date nailed down to the exact goddam second and every guy I worked with would know when it was gonna happen. That's another thing about guys-we won't go to the doctor to have our prostate checked-can't stand any man OR machine touching our asses-but we see the slightest beginning of a mole or a growth or even just a stray dot of lint on our penis? Right down to the cock doctor's office. Immediately. So if blood came outta that thing? Forget it. There wouldn't be a war for another seven centuries-unless we could all synchronize our situations. Then we'd bomb and maim and behead each other for three weeks-take ten days off to bloat, whine and moan-then compare notes about who bled how much and go right back to the maiming and the killing.
Who Bled How Much would become a sign of whose dick was bigger, by the way.
Which brings us to shopping, somehow.
Why is it that everything a woman brings home was "on sale." Shoes, coats, gloves, chairs. Anything and everything she buys. "It was supposed to cost eighteen hundred but I got it on sale for a thousand."
That's how she describes a lamp.
Men? We are the exact opposite. Nothing worth having is worth having at all unless it was the most expensive one ever made. "Look at this plasma, Bob-forty-seven thousand six hundred and ninety-nine bucks! Biggest one they make!"
It wasn't enough to have a pill that gave you a hard-on that arrived within half an hour and lasted almost fifteen minutes.
Nope.
We needed an even more expensive pill that bonerizes within seconds and can last up to almost three goddam days.
