That Loser Feeling: Writing: Evil: The Deal

Okay all you moms out there, here's the deal. I'll admit something about being a guy that women have always suspected— a really juicy secret that John Grey neglected to mention in his multi-trillion-dollar garnering series, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, And So Matthew Is Obviously From Neptune— if just one of you will explain something that's been plaguing me. Ready? Here it goes...

What You Have Suspected Forever: Men are deliberately all the same. Yep. It's true. We do it on purpose. It's even more insidious than that. We deliberately get together every few years, on a rotating schedule, and make sure that we're all the same. We meet up in bunkers in Montana and North Dakota and read The Guy Manual aloud to one another. We huddle around bonfires and wear warpaint. We consume beer, and red meat, and we all get our own personalized remote control. We bemoan inventions like the Lifetime cable channel, and "teal."

Sometimes there is dissent within the ranks of men, or worse yet, someone is caught behaving in a consistently Non-Guy way. It can get pretty ugly.

"Consulate! I put it to you that your client did, and with malice aforethought, go to the mall with his girlfriend and help pick out shoes."

(Gasps of shock and general murmuring from the gallery.)

"It also horrifies me to admit that he was caught no fewer than three times helping to fold sheets."

(More astonishment.)

"How do you plead?"

"Well, it's just that I..."

(From the gallery) "Cane him!"

"Yes, cane him!"

"Lash him to The Pommel Horse of Shame!"

(All) "A caning! A caning!"

And so on.

By the way, what did you think Montana and North Dakota were really for? Did you think that there was a major tundra harvesting operation going on up there? That they were allowed into the Union because we didn't have enough frozen expanses of nothingness? Please don't be a moron.

Now that you know the truth, it's time for you moms out there to admit the same thing. I mean, you moms have to be hammering out the Mom Rules together, right? How can you be so consistent otherwise?

Here's an illustrative example, plucked from my childhood. It didn't matter where the sleep-over party took place, and it didn't matter how old my friends and I got: all the moms I knew, including my own, knew precisely three ways to say "get back in bed."

The first way was almost casual, part hopeful and part disgusted, and was used far before anyone was having any real fun. The resident mom would pad out to the living room in bathrobe and slippers, tell us to get into bed, and wish us a good night, as if there was any chance of that happening. This usually occurred just after all the furniture and sleeping bags had been woven into a Living Room Fortress, but before anything had actually been damaged. It was to be ignored.

The second way that moms said "get back in bed" was a little more, shall we say, compelling? It usually involved gritted teeth, with each word emphasized as if it was its own sentence.

Get. Back. In. Bed.

This version was used because "Mom" had been awakened by the parakeet screaming, "Get away from me! Someone call 911!" in his own defense, and because she had discovered a kitchen floor completely covered with spilled fruit punch and soggy Cheerios. By this point we were usually stripped down to nothing but pajama bottoms, and a couple of us had no hair.

This version was usually enough to settle down most of my normal friends, and if it were not for intrepid explorers such as my childhood self, none of them would ever have found out about...

The third way. We have removed the wallpaper. The sofa is on fire. We are totally naked, although some of us have underwear on our heads. Our friend has taken the family car to an all-night supermarket to buy more Cheerios and Milk Duds, and he has brought along his eight-year-old sister to work the pedals because his feet won't reach them. We can no longer speak English. Their Dalmatian is bloated and immobile because we wanted to see how many frozen fish sticks we could stuff into him before he would detonate (a surprisingly high number.)

Mom is suddenly there. We freeze in place, mid-atrocity, terrified. The dog tries to move toward mom's protection but cannot. He's too bloated. Instead, he flops in place like a hideous, epileptic trout. Mom is so angry, so furious, that she actually loses her sight. She stares blankly at the ceiling as she gathers the strength necessary to destroy us.

"GET BACK IN BED!" she finally bellows, all hysteria and rawness, possessed. She is not the same woman. She has been replaced by something unearthly. We are still frozen to the ground. We cannot believe that things have gone so horribly wrong.

"GET BACK IN BED NOW! " she shrieks, her head swiveling around like a police siren, and she steps toward us. This is enough to get us moving. She moves, and so we move. "NOW! GET BACK IN BED NOW! BEFORE I KILL YOU! NOW! NOW! NOOOOOOOOOOW!"

We are so fear-stricken that we forget that we live next door, or across the street, or for goodness' sake anywhere else but here, and we start gathering up our sleeping bags and pillows, some of us blubbering in our abject terror, panicking, unable to find a patch of dry carpet on which to sleep and no longer caring, really, because she's still moving toward us, and she's got a broom now, and she's swinging it at our heads, and I have a split-second to marvel at her impeccable aim and technique before I dive, head-first, into my sleeping bag, next to the still-smoldering couch.

It was always the same, with every mom, until finally they collectively realized that it was only when I was around that these things happened. That's how I know that you're all getting together and comparing notes— because suddenly I was labeled a "bad influence" and the guys were forbidden to associate with me.

Not that I haven't gotten over it. I don't regret anything. The way I see it, we had a great time, and now we have something to reminisce about every few years, up in Montana.

Last updated 24 March 2003