Men in Need of Civilized Women

Why is it women need to give men instructions about living even when the men aren’t husbands or boyfriends?  A couple of weeks ago I was speaking by telephone with my former fiancé and mentioned a mutual friend was passing through town and was going to pay a visit.  She immediately started barking orders about how I needed to clean my apartment.  Mind you, she hasn’t seen my place but simply made an assumption that without her involvement in my life I’m no longer showering, shaving or using toilet paper.  This is a woman who lives in fear her mother may drop in unexpectedly and the house won’t be clean. Never mind we can dither about the definition of clean.  It’s not like mother would disown daughter because a few sprinkles of dust were found on a windowsill.  There was a TV commercial when I was young where a woman visiting a house and wearing white gloves would drag a finger across a mantle in search of dust.  The woman of the house was humiliated when a glove the visitor was wearing got soiled.

I don’t know about you but if I find a guest sniffing around the corners I’d probably consider recommending they find a room at the funny farm.

Very true men and women have vastly different social worries.  When I was young I got a good deal on a station wagon (pre-Cambrian mode of transport).  A young woman I knew who relied on me to get her from one ice cream parlor to the next made fun of my “grocery getter”.  Then she got angry when I suggested she could walk.

The wagon came in handy a year later.  I introduced a friend to a young woman I knew and the two quickly became an item, although.  She objected to his living habits.  He had a large home and shared it with some buddies who helped him with expenses.  They were all young single men and one of them was very ingenious and constructed his own beer tap system by drilling a hole in the door of an old refrigerator and then placing a keg inside.  The keg connected to a hose which connected to a tap on the door.  The three quickly started competing with local taverns for clientele.  Especially young women who knew where they could find cold beer at the ready and for free.  Every weekend the house was packed with young people and many guests brought their own bottles and cans.  Eventually the entire back porch was stacked with returnables.  “Welchie’s” new girlfriend wasn’t pleased because the empties attracted insects and there wasn’t room for seats on the porch.  He contacted me and I backed up the station wagon and filled it with bags of empties.  We took these to a beer store he was quite familiar with and swapped the cans for nickels.  So many nickels he purchased a keg on the way out.  I finished my end of the mission by helping him load it inside the customized refrigerator and got the first taste (after the thing settled down following the jostling on the drive home).  A few days later he decided to throw a huge party.  The new squeeze arrived and insisted she had to clean the house.  “Haven’t men ever heard about dusting!” she thundered as she scrubbed windows in the living room.  The next night about 60 people jammed the house.  The following afternoon when “Welchie” woke up the place was coated in spilled beer and cigarette butts.  His new girlfriend refused to clean the place a second time because there were guests still sleeping on the floors.  He discovered there was still beer in the keg, poured a pitcher and sat down to watch football.

Men have creative ways of solving these problems.  Another friend had so many things stacked on his kitchen table he had no place to eat.  So he bought a second table.  Isn’t that ingenious?

I went furniture shopping with the old flame a couple of years ago and was stunned when she bought something called a “bed skirt”.  Seriously!  You sleep and snore and drool on a bed and it needs a skirt?  And you women think we’re the barbarians?