Men 'Splain And Women Nag

 I was thinking about mansplaining. 

     Is there even such a thing? 

     I mean, men mansplain and women nag. Isn’t that just the normal order of things? For example, when I give my wife directions, I know to stay away from words like “turn” and “left.” 

     I know it’s a cliche, but, besides nagging, women also can’t keep a secret. Men can, but that’s mainly because we’re not listening to anything we’re told. 

     “You only hear what you want to hear,” my wife once complained during a fiery, but mostly peaceful, discussion.

     “Yes, I’d love a cold beer,” I answered. 

     That ended the argument, but that also ended her talking to me for a few days after that. 

     Can you believe she once got mad at me because I followed her directions of taking the sheets from the dryer and putting them on the bed? 

     “I meant, put the sheets on the mattress,” she said, pointing disgustedly at the pile of fabric I left in a tangled clump on top of the mattress.

     So I did. Just the way the military taught me in boot camp. At least, I’m assuming that’s the way they would have taught me because I was never in the military. I would have served. Proudly, even. But, you know… bone spurs. 

   “JIM!” 

     You know, she may have told me to put the sheets on the bed, but she didn’t say anything about putting the pillows in the pillowcases. She was as irritated with me as that police officer who came to my door and asked me where I was between 5 & 6.

     “Kindergarten,” I told him.

     Of course, I jest. 

     Just ask my parole officer.

     I think you’ll agree that, because of these differences in the sexes, while men are more apt to murder, women make better murderers. Men give women reason to murder, for one, but women have access to less traditional murder weapons. Like Tupperware lids, for example. Imagine using a weapon that no one can ever find. At least that’s been MY experience when my wife asks me to put the leftovers away. 

     Men and women are different and that’s just the way it is. You want an example of what that difference is? The difference is when a woman asks you to smell something, it usually smells nice. 

     It used to be that men wore the pants in a relationship and women wore the jammies, but now everywhere I go I see grown men toodling around wearing pajama bottoms in public. It’s gotten so bad I’ve seen entire families (wives, husbands, and service animals) out and about in the lower half of their sleepwear. 

     Fathers, is that really the kind of life lesson you want to teach your sons? 

     I forget the store I was shopping at, but it was about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and a grown man was pushing his cart around sporting some snazzy Snoopy pajammies. 

     “My friend, isn’t it kind of late in the day to still be in pajamas?” I thought to myself. 

     I had to take my father to one of his doctor appointments dressed in his pajama bottoms, but that was only because he was supposed to have a “procedure” done and needed to wear something loose and comfortable. It was a procedure for this, that, and the other. Mainly, the other. The technician was beaming as he bragged about the new machine he’d be using. Only… 

     The machine didn't work. 

     “Sorry,” he apologized, “but it seems to be giving me a bit of a problem.” 

     My father turned to me. 

     “The machine’s new and I’m almost a hundred,” he said, “and the machine's the one having a problem?” 

     The technician pretended not to hear. 

     When the doctor came in shortly after that he wanted to know if my father was avoiding stress. 

     “Sometimes,” my father said, giving the technician, who was busy brushing away nothing from the front of his scrubs, a side glance. 

     “Are you eating healthily?” the doctor wanted to know. 

     “I try, doc,” my father sighed, “but every time I do, along comes Christmas, Easter, summer, the weekend, or my daughter-in-law with a bag of donuts, ruining it for me.” 

     Before I ruin this for you by going on too long I’d better end here. When I signed on, Blogger let me know that it wants me to change my password. I’ve only had the password a month, but apparently that’s a month too long. Changing passwords shouldn’t be so difficult, or frequent, but they are because these Internet companies never seem to be happy with the ones I come up with. They want something a bit more difficult for me to remember. At my age everything is difficult to remember. 

     I’ll come up with one and they’ll say: “Sorry, but your password must contain at least 12 characters (upper and lower case), one symbol, one number, a musical note, a hieroglyph, and be in the form of a haiku. Please include an eagle’s feather and a drop of dragon’s blood.” 

     Like I said… difficult.