So Cute! (Or Not.)

One of the biggest advantages, I think, girls have over guys is what I like to call the “So Cute” safety net. If a girl does something well, that’s great – she comes off a winner. If she does something badly, she always has the option, if skilled, to come off looking “So Cute”! Guys don’t have that. They can either pull something off or appear like a loser.

For example, karaoke. A girl who sings a karaoke song well is loved by everyone. So is a guy. But what if they fuck it up? How often have you seen a girl go on stage, rape a song, do a little hip dance and almost everyone in the audience thought that was just “Sooo Cute”! Quite often, I’ll bet, and probably more than that. Now when was the last time you saw a guy manage to do that? Never, right? Imagine a guy who messes his song up. There’s nothing he can do, except maybe find the back door and make as quiet and quick an exit as possible. Same thing with reality shows on T.V. Sanjaya Malakar was not “So Cute”, he was “So Gay”.

Or consider a party. A girl can go up to the guy she likes and botch her opening line up as much as she wants and chances are he’ll still think that was just “So Cute”. Or she could go up to him and ask him for a light, light her cigarette, take a puff and end up coughing – “So Cute”. If a guy did that, it’s plain gay.

Girls can cry while watching a movie or get scared of the dark, and get away with it because someone somewhere will think that’s just the cutest thing they ever saw. Girls who like driving fast are cool, girls who don’t are just being “cute”. Why aren’t guys allowed to get away with that?

You just can’t lose when you’re a girl, I tell you. Us guys have it tough all the way. We have no choice but to be the very best at what we do. There’s no “So Cute” net to catch us if we fall. Who wants voting rights! Bah!

Virgin Problems

I am often asked rather embarrassing questions by kids around me. They always bring back memories about embarrassing questions I used to ask when I was a kid.

For example, once when I must have been about 6, I realized that we refer to the mother of Jesus as the “Blessed Virgin Mary”. I could figure out what “blessed” meant and “Mary” was obviously her name – but what the heck was “virgin”? I used to attend Sunday School as a kid – yes, a very­ “Catholic” upbringing – and that’s where I was when I realized this.

So I picked the nearest adult around – one of my Sunday School teachers – and fired it at her. “Why do we refer to Mother Mary as ‘Virgin’. What does that mean?”

For those of you’ll who have never been to Sunday School, let me try to describe the average Sunday School teacher in one line – “Be-spectacled, old prude who never quite managed to get any in her time.” (Ironic that my question dealt with the meaning of the term “virgin”, when you think about it! Who better to answer!) And being the type that they are, Sunday School teachers embarrass easily. As soon as she heard my question she sucked in a sharp breath and turned as red as a monkey’s bum. I knew I had hit a winner.

Looking back at it now, I just appreciate the difficulty of the situation I had just put her in. How in the world does someone explain “virginity” to a kid without first explaining “sex” to them. (Actually how do you even explain “sex” to someone when you haven’t ever done it in your life? But let’s not get into that.)

“Well son, you see,” she started off gamely after recovering from her initial shock, “Joseph and Mary weren’t married. And yet, and yet Mary gave birth to a son.”

“You mean like Hollywood!” I was eager to show that even though I was just a 6-year-old, I was right up there when it came to following celebrity gossip. “Ma’am, is Hollywood full of virgins?”

“No. No. Not at all. You see, son, this birth was special. Mary and Joseph weren’t staying with each other as yet.”

“I see.” It was plainly clear that I didn’t quite see. But she wasn’t going to take any chances. “Class is up for today. Remember to do your homework for next week kids. Have a nice day!”

Can you blame me for believing then, until I was about 10, that children were born when two people – man and woman (whether married or not) – just happened to be living together?

“Need To Change Your Balls!”

Most of us hate going to the mechanic because we know we’re going to get screwed and there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s because most of us don’t know squat about our cars or motorcycles and when we take them to the mechanic we’re as much of a sitting duck as anything. He’ll throw fancy terms at you -- “fan belt”, “radiator hose”, “bevel gears”, “Gossamer sheets”, “monkey piss”, etc. To be very frank, these sound like nothing that could possibly be in my car -- but what the hell do I know? I’m not the mechanic now, am I?

So I reluctantly agree that “Yes, my wanker shaft does need to be replaced” and “Yes, it is indeed a wise option to be ‘on the safer side’ and put in a new set of lubricated balls”. All the while I’m trying to add up in my mind what this is going to cost me and I wind up with my mental calculator displaying the words “You’re fucked!” Then I ask the mechanic, “How much is this going to cost me?” and get a reply that’s about twice my mentally calculated estimate. (Double fucked!)

But I’m a poor (even poorer by the end of the day), ignorant idiot who has no clue what’s causing that irritating noise somewhere in the trunk and if the mechanic says he’s got to put in new headlights to get rid of it, then I really have no choice but to agree with him. And if fitting a new rear-view mirror can help avoid the grinding sound that comes whenever I shift from third to fourth, then yea - I want that done too!

The point I’m trying to get at is actually this -- how is a mechanic any different from a doctor? I personally hate going to a doctor because I don’t know much more about (the internal functionings of) my body than I know about my vehicle. And if my mechanic can screw me over with a smile on his face, then so can my doctor! When I go to him with a certain problem or just for a general physical (the equivalent of servicing your car), he throws weird medical student terminology at me. Prescribes enough medication to keep the entire population of Colombia high for a month and sends me on my way with a huge hole in my pocket. Just like my mechanic does.

In fact I suspect they probably even use the same words (what would poor, ignorant me know!).

“Your wanker shaft needs changing and you’ll have to lubricate your balls! That should get rid of that headache!”
“Right on, Doc!”

Most people never understand why I hate seeing a doctor. Now I’ve stopped going altogether. (Sometimes I’ll break an ankle or something and the pain will so bad that I have to attach a pair of crocodile clips to my nipples just to take the focus of it, but even then I’ll staunchly refuse to pay the doctor a visit!) Hopefully, after this post people will understand why I’m so scared of going to the doctor. (And also, why I sometimes have two weird protrusions sticking out from under my T-shirt.)