Muffin Tops

Unlike a woman, a man with a muffin top doesn't worry about hiding his weight.  But this display, of course, is an art.

Most men prefer to begin with a T-shirt that is two sizes too small.  This will insure that the muffin top squeezes out appropriately at the bottom of the shirt, and the man's torso will then take on the appearance of a rubber band wound taught around a warm stick of butter.  He prefers this squeeze effect and feels that the muffin top offers him the tough look that will enable him to pick up chicks (usually chain-smoking women with names like Sugar or Lulu who possess, themselves, muffin tops of ample proportions and who talk in low tones--lower, even, than the men they are attracted to).

If the tight T-shirt doesn't work, men will opt for the belt cincture.  This is popular among plumbers and refrigerator repairmen, and usually results in stretch marks, which can look quite sexy on older men who don't have anything else to do.  A large belt, wrapped twice around the torso and cinched tightly at the top of the pelvis, will splay the muffin top to either side of the belt . . . and will offer the appearance of an infinity pool.  Used in this way, the belt cincture can usually produce muffin tops that hang down to the knees and can be used as gun holsters or fanny packs. 

Many men also find that a dark tan helps their cause.  Muffin tops with freckles don't usually command attention at the beach. But when a man has a bronzed beauty skirting his mid-rift he feels ample, as if he has a twin, and sometimes he names his muffin top and refers to it in the third person, as in:  "And how is Rumpelstiltskin doing today?" or "Would Laughy-Taffy like to go for a little walk?" or "Hey, Milton, mind if I rub you down with a little Coppertone?"

Women, of course, find these traits charming and endearing, and women can often be overheard saying, "Isn't he and his friend the cutest thing?"

Men who are looking to get rid of their muffin tops often go through withdraw symptoms.  They know they need to part ways, but it's difficult--being on a first-name basis for so long. 

Older men are a long way from a six-pack, and for many, it's been years since they could look down and see their own shoes.    

Father of the Bride

The father-daughter relationship is a special one . . . especially when the father is growing old and needs his twenty-two year old daughter to read the newspaper to him.  Daughters of this age also appreciate their fathers, who are very likely paying for a wedding.

I have now entered this stage of life and have discovered that the father's role in the wedding plans is basically one-dimensional.  I write checks.  Of course, I've written and published whole books on the subject of wedding and wedding planning, and thank God my daughter has taken much of it to heart and truly values my expertise.  She is like a sponge and has absorbed many of my low-cost or no-cost ideas. 

There are a few other places, however, where I still see cost-savings, but she seems resistant to these.  Among them:

1.
Inviting only five people to the wedding (Chelsey and her fiance, me and Becky, and the pastor who will be presiding . . . I also don't plan on giving the pastor an honorarium and this will save me the cost of the cake . . . which, I should point out, I plan to bake myself from two batches of Walmart Betty Crocker. I also believe we could cut the invitation list to four if Chelsey would entertain the idea of not inviting the groom).

2.
Wearing our swimwear instead of rental tuxes.  I won't wear a shirt, and this will also give me a first chance to wear my new thong.

3.
Limiting the photography to photos taken by me via my cellphone.

4.
Music will be provided by me accapella, including Ava Maria on the spoons with something of a Latin rhythm.

As you can see, I have a multitude of cost-saving ideas and people continue to pay me for them.  Not my family, mind you.  But other people pay me--people who are living actual lives and who work and everything.  People who clip their toenails at night and who have meaningful conversations instead of yelling from the bathroom toilet, "Can you bring me a roll?!"  People who, if they knew better, would never plunk down $12.95 for one of my titles under the belief that "this guy knows what he's talking about."

Naturally, I can save people money--in fact, BARRELS of it--if they will only listen to me.  My advice is worth the price of all my books and the various articles I have published in national Bridal magazines.  I'm still getting paid for my advice and there are some people (not my family, of course) who know a superior mind when they encounter one. 

Thing is, my daughter has her wits about her and she has her mother's charm.  This is a deadly combination for a young woman and she is not as easily duped as she used to be by old Dad.  Still, I am the father of the bride and I remind her of this daily. 

I also take out the checkbook periodically and show her that the balance is quickly approaching ZERO.

If she has any other plans for the wedding, she will soon have to start selling those cracked walnuts she will have to glean and clean out of the front lawn.  But she's young, and she should have no trouble finding a buyer off the street.

And me? I'll keep writing marital advice for magazines and hope that somebody out there is listening.  After all, I've been messing up my own marriage for over twenty-seven years, and I've learned a great deal from failure.

Most days, I still wonder why my wife married me on the cheap. But I was never that easy.  And she knows I look great in that thong.

Understanding the Male Brain

Most women sit in front of the TV every night (eating quarts of butter-brickle ice cream) and ask themselves:  "I wonder what he is thinking right now?"

Let me elucidate.

Most men are either thinking about sex or wondering who invented the game of hockey, and why.  But if the man is over forty-five, he's wondering more about hockey than sex, and he's thinking about purchasing a pair of skates.

The male brain is denser than the female's and leans heavily toward the fatty side, and because of this, it is more difficult for men to discuss their feelings.  Men do not associate feelings with the brain, and the majority seem to regard emotions as residing more in the area of the stomach than in the cranium.  That is why most men will say, "I feel hungry", as opposed to a woman, who is more likely to say, "I feel light-headed . . . like I'm gonna swoon."

The light-headed woman is likely menopausal, however, and she should not regard her emotions as weird. Rather, she should talk about her emotions with her husband (if she still has one)--a man who is, quite naturally, just itching for a lengthy conversation about hormones and hot flashes.  Two hours should do it.

But the male brain is not set up for retreat settings or, shall we say, lengthy weekend discussions that tend to be circular in logic or where the woman is heard to say repeatedly, "Why is this happening to me?"

The man, of course, will nod understandingly, as his brain is set up for a motion offense and a zone defense, but inside his brain he is thinking, "What time does that hockey game begin?"  Men also have the capacity to appear to be engaged in conversation when, in reality, they are basking in the sun outside a remote village on the isle of Crete.  That is why most women ask periodically, "Are you listening to me?"  But, through eons of evolutionary adaptations, men have developed the capacity to nod affirmatively at these questions, grunt, and still be engaged in ice hockey at the same time.  Women, of course, through the precision of their own evolution, understand that men are not listening . . . but they continue to talk any way. 

This dichotomy is known in most cultures as "the mating dance" or "slappin' it around the rink."  Or in the ghettos it is known as, "Yo Momma!"

Eventually, the vocal chords on the woman begin to tire, and the man becomes sleepy.  This is when he begins to think about sex again, but he can't do anything about it.  After the hockey game, the woman changes the channel to a Dr. Phil rerun and talks to herself.

She imagines she is on the set and is receiving expert counsel from a man who will listen and who will, in a Texas-twang, say, "I'm here to listen until the cows come home and I'll be here to watch this parade until you've tossed your last piece of candy!"  The flesh-and-blood man, in the meantime, is rejuvenating his brain in a deep sleep.

She wakes him at midnight to ask, "Are you listening to me?"

He was.  He just had his eyes closed.  And for some reason, he's hungry for candy.

Bridal Showers

The father of the bride has no place at his daughter's bridal shower.  He is in the house (like the ghost of Elvis) but he is relegated to a dingy back room with faulty wiring while the women-folk watch the bride open her gifts.  There is fun and laughter among the women.  The father bunkers down in the basement, killing cockroaches, and weeps.

The bridal shower is a rite of passage for the man.  As his daughter heaps boxes of domestic goods on his living room floor, he witnesses large portions of his own life evaporating but holds out the slim hope that one of the women will step on the cat and kill it.  He hopes that something good, like feline extinction, can emerge from the bridal shower. 

Periodically, the man does hear the siren call of his wife, urging him to emerge from his lair to help serve the pineapple punch, but it is too late for apologies and the man is cranky and flip as he tosses cookies onto tiny glass plates and attempts to answer the question:  "What are you doing here?"

Naturally, the man looks for certain escape routes:  the baseball game on television, a loose shingle, a squirrel on the back deck that needs to be trapped and deported to Kentucky.  While the women eat cupcakes and discuss wedding colors and the various nuances of the Big Day (all of which the man, of course, is paying for by taking out a third mortgage and cashing in his life insurance policy), the man sits in the corner, behind a large decorative floor piece, and bites his fingernails to the quick.  He spits the tiny bits of fingernail into a potted plant, as he hears petunias crave calcium.

As the wedding shower is winding to a close, the man stands by his wife to thank people.  His wife reminds him that he should help some of the elderly down the front steps and that, if anyone is going to break a back carting shipping crates full of china and kitchen appliances, it should be him.  He is, after all, expendable.  

When the shower is over and the final guest has departed, the father of the bride collapses on the couch while watching Stanley Cup Hockey.

The man doesn't know anything about the Stanley Cup.  He only knows that there are two hundred cups sitting on his living room floor, some in floral patterns, and he will be drinking out of them until he dies.

This is his final memory . . . and he sleeps on it. 

Manogram

A few days ago I received a reminder from my health insurance provider that I was past due for a prostate checkup.  For a man the prostate checkup is as dreaded as the mammogram is for a woman.  So why don't we just call this procedure a manogram?

What, exactly, is a manogram?

Well, a manogram is an annual date between a doctor and a man and usually consists of soft light and a Nat King Cole CD playing in the background.  And we get the feeling that doctors don't like administering these tests any more than men enjoy receiving them.

Naturally, women want to know: what, exactly, goes on in there (and up there)?  And, since no medical journals explain the procedure accurately, and because most men are tight-lipped about this annual rendezvous, I feel compelled to offer a few insights here.  I'm coming out of the closet, which should be a good thing for all men, and they can thank me later.

The manogram begins with the patient (usually a male in his forties or fifties who is in reasonably good health and doesn't need any intrusion up there) entering the examination room, where he is greeted by a beautiful female nurse named Bambi who asks, "And what brings you in to see the doctor today?"

Here several veiled references to the prostate are offered, including but not limited to:  "I'm here to get jiggy wid' it" or "I feel like I have a gerbil lodged in my duodenum" or "I've been peeing the bed for the better part of five years and my wife is beginning to complain." The word "prostate" is never used. The nurse takes notations while limping through the blood pressure check (sometimes laughing hysterically or getting red-cheeked) and then says, "The doctor will be with you shortly."  (This, of course, is a lie . . . it will be hours before you actually see the doctor.)

Men at this point begin praying that the doctor will be male.

When at last the doctor appears--usually after the patient has requested to urinate twice and has called out for Jimmy Johns delivery--the dance begins.  The doctor once again asks, "And what brings you here today?"

More veiled references are proffered, usually with heavily-peppered stories ending in the phrase, " . . . and my wife thought I should see you" or "I hear you make a mean martini."

The doctor nods, blushes slightly, and then dons a pair of blue rubber gloves that the patient hopes are fresh out of the box.  At this point the doctor might: a) offer a selection of Perry Como tunes b) dim the lights c) apologize for having ice-cold hands.  The doctor might also say something like: "If this doesn't work out, I've got some friends who can see you on Wednesday" or "Oh, yeah . . . I remember you!" or "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me."

At this point the patient is invited to drop trou and lean over an examination table.  Phrases to watch out for here would include: "Holy-moley!" or "Are you married?"

(Let us here skip over the delectable details of the procedure and move directly into clean-up on Aisle Seven.)

Here the doctor removes his gloves, washes his hands twelve times in a stiff detergent that could, conceivably, remove the epidermis, and then sits on a stool (yes, that's a pun!) before offering his feedback.  "Felt good," you hope he will say.  "You're good to go."

One never wants to hear: "Felt bad" or "Have you, by any chance, been neutered by a drunk veterinarian?"

The manogram ends with the secret handshake and the doctor hastening to the nearest telephone to order Chinese.

Moo Goo Guy Pan is the most common.  And the doctor never orders anything with nuts.

Man Plans

Every man has a plan for his life.  But by age twenty, he's chucked it and settled for Gomer Pyle reruns and Facebook entries.  A Man Plan never works out quite as a man expects.

Take women, for instance.  The Man Plan is designed, early on, to locate a gorgeous, desirable female, woo her, bag her, and take her home to meet his psychotic parents.  But the man settles for marriage instead.

A man's career plans are much the same.  He begins the Man Plan with a full-color chart that he designed in college with crayola and water paints, detailing the rise of his meteoric career and when, exactly, he will make his first million.  He settles for a job slinging fries at Wendys and, in the event that he is promoted to mid-level management or "fry supervisor", he decides that his management-level salary will now support a child.

Once a child arrives, however, the Man Plan is relegated to a dusty drawer in the garage, a space littered with stripped screws and mismatched nuts-and-bolts and oily rags.  Sometimes the man hangs out in this 25-watt space and weeps for his lost Man Plan, asking himself the question:  "Where did I go wrong?"

Nothing went wrong but everything, and the Man Plan now shifts into "empty-nest" mode, when the man dreams of the day when his children will move out of the house, the cat will keel, and when his wife will support him so he can pursue a career in oil painting or worm farming.  Naturally, however, the Man Plan runs aground on the reef of his wife's plans for a new wardrobe and her demands for a car that will start in the winter.

And, thus, the Man Plan augments yet again to "retirement".  

Naturally, however, a Man Plan for retirement is rarely realized in full because either:
A) the man dies of scurvy without ever going to sea
B) he must work as a greeter at Walmart until the cat dies
C) his wife meets a fresh male with a better Man Plan and removes herself to Bermuda where, for the next fifteen years, she lives off his pension and a steady diet of caviar and strawberry martinis

In the end, the typical male does find that he can implement one component of the Man Plan, but that only if he pre-plans his funeral arrangements.  He chooses to be buried at sea, and hopes that his ex-wife will drown digging his grave.  

Understanding the Male Ego

It's a common question women ask:  "Where does he get the ego?"  This is a fair question, though I think most men struggle to give an answer while they are watching Matlock reruns or working the night shift at 7-11. 

So . . . allow me to help.

The male ego is generally shaped like a kidney bean and usually lodges behind the right eyeball.  Sometimes, as a male ages, the ego descends into the abdomen and is flushed down the toilet.  If a man manages to keep his ego into his seventies, the ego can be removed surgically, but this is rare.  A man in the full-throes of manopause typically sees his ego reduced to the size of a pencil eraser as his testosterone level drops and he is able to afford tickets to the ballet.  The ego is further reduced as a man migrates from briefs to boxers.

The male ego, however, is very fragile.  It is usually tested for the first time on the wedding night, when the wife comments:  "That's it!?  That's all you've got?"  The male ego is steadily reduced from this point forward, and if a wife works at it, she can usually extract the ego entirely by the time the husband is in his early forties and has given up his dreams of playing shortstop for the Yankees.

The male ego can also be reduced quickly and easily if a woman makes steady but reliable comments about his lack of fashion, his cheesy wardrobe, his thinning hair, or the diminishing size of his income.  There are, of course, comments that could also be made about the male anatomy, but this is hitting below the belt.

Should a woman desire to keep some of the male ego on hand, the ego can usually be pickled.  Mayonnaise jars work well and, once extracted, the male ego can be kept under the bed and only brought out on special occasions (bar mitzvahs, birthdays, anniversaries, National Donut Day, etc.).

Women should keep in mind, however, that once the male ego drops out, it is very difficult to stuff back in.  That is why most older men prefer to eat their ego, as they cannot stuff it back in through athletic prowess or the powers of persuasion.  Politicians are the only ones who seem to keep their egos into their eighties, but most of these are old white males who have very young wives to support.

With a bit of practice, most women can rid their man of his ego in short order.  No need to call a doctor.  And, in the rare event when a man seems to have no ego at all, a woman would do well to check under the pillow.

Sometimes the Ego Fairy leaves a surprise helping if a man hits the lottery. 

The Golf Poem

In honor of The Masters (my favorite major tournament and the only pro golf course I have walked extensively), I thought I would offer this reflection.










That's Why They Call it "Golf"

When a man's feeling blue
He will often break through
And lift himself from the trough
By hitting some balls
With some fades and some draws,
And that's why they call it golf.

He ain't any pro
But his wife doesn't know
That his investment never pays off
No matter how slick
He hacks with his stick
When he tells her he's playing some golf.

For most of his round
His ball can't be found
Although he tries to show off
His drive and his chip
And his putts to the lip
Of the cup when he's playing some golf.

His buddies tell lies
As he swears at the skies
And pretends that his game is well-off,
But in truth he's a hack
And he's hurting his back
Pretending that he's good at golf.

But on the 18th
When he's finished the length
And marked his score card on and off,
He feels really great
That's he's shot 108.
And that's why they call it Golf.

Why Do Men Play Golf?

I no longer golf.  I used to.  But back in my day we called it "hacking".  Each round consisted of a new box of balls, which I promptly and consistently hooked and sliced into the woods, waters, and sand traps . . . many of which were not even listed on the course itself.  Some of these "traps" and "hazards" were more commonly knows as "windshields" or "front yards" or "nursing home cafeterias".  I have played out of these rough positions on more than one occasion and my backswing was often limited due to the octogenarians pressing up against me in their wheelchairs.

Golf is, perhaps, the most manly of sports.  One might not reach this conclusion from watching professional golfers--what with their matching polo shirts and slacks and their prima donna caddies--but for the average guy, golf requires more than two balls.

It is true that some women enjoy golf, but there are far more men who try to play the game.  Trouble is, most men can't play at all.

And women want to know why a man will spend $1000 on a set of clubs, $500 on attire, $75 for greens-fees, and $25.95 for a new box of Calloways when he can't even hit a green in regulation? 

Let me explain.

Golf is the only game that involves nature the way that God intended it, and the way that Jack Nicklaus designed it.  It is the only game that combines wind, grass, weeds, trees, sand and air with a full bag of four-letter words.  Golf is, perhaps, the only game that men feel they can still play from a prone position, or even if they are on a ventilator machine, and every man fancies that he is a great putter. 

In short, golf is like making love, and men use golf as a substitute for this activity as they grow older and their wives reach menopause and don't want to be touched.  Golf is the game of manopause, and even if a man can't walk a straight line any more, he knows he can always yank a five iron out of his bag and have a go at the green.  There's nothing happening at home and that's why he goes to the course.

It's true of professional golfers, too.  Otherwise, they would be playing basketball and trying to score.

Watching golf on TV is like watching paint dry, or watching the grass grow.  And that's why women don't understand the attraction.  Isn't there something more exciting than golf?

Actually, anything is more exciting than golf, but again, golf is the game of the sexually-deprived.  What woman, after all, would find a guy named "Bubba" exciting?  But men can identify with a golfer who cries on the 18th hole.  We've all been there.

Naturally, being the real man that I am, I gave up golf years ago.  That, and my shoulders are so full of arthritis, I can no longer swing a club.

I'm saving what little I have left for my marriage.  And besides, my irons are bent.

Are Men Interesting?

It takes a beer commercial to make a man interesting.  Women, however, understand that the advertising is a lie.  No man is interesting in his own right.  He's got to have help.

Money, for example, is one bonus.

Make no mistake.  If a woman knows a man has money, he becomes 90% more interesting than the man who pays for his lunch with a one dollar bill.  A man who drives a Lexus is far more intriguing than the guy who drives a 1993 Senoma pickup.  And appearance doesn't matter.  A man with money can still look like a mud fence and he's going to get a date on Saturday night.  The looker with the buck in his pocket will be lonely.

Money makes a man interesting.  But so does background.

Background is where a man creates most of his lies . . . and it is amazing to note how many women believe these tales.  I, for one, have always been able to get attention from telling women about the prison break I organized back in 1982.  It was maximum security, my name was Jose Valdez, and with my current name-change and the hundred dollar bill in my pocket, the Feds can't find me.  Women eat this up.  I also tell them that I drive around neighborhoods looking for kittens stranded in trees and how I nearly lost my right eye to a wayward chainsaw.  These stories are usually good for a free Starbucks coffee if I meet a vulnerable barista who's at the end of her shift.

Money. Background.  And yes, women desire that unseen quality called chutzpa.

This is the reason my wife is always telling me, "You are so interesting.  I could listen to your stories all day! Tell me more!" 

Of course, I don't.  Tell her more, I mean.  That's one of the secrets to being a successful male. Always leave them wanting more.  That way, a woman will always wonder:  "Has he really got two hundred dollars in a bank account and is he really Jose Valdez?"

Don't tell too much.  She'll never know.  And you'll be more interesting than ever.

Yard Work

It is spring, and the manopausal male has once again emerged from hibernation to work in the yard.  You see these guys everywhere:  white, pasty men wearing John Deere T-shirts and shorts, wearing leather gloves and pulling starter-cords on lawn mowers.

This is a rite.

But older men also lament the upkeep.  They wonder why they planted so many trees in their younger years and why, for the love of God, they spread so much fertilizer on the grass.  You can see the defeat in their eyes before they mow the first swath.  They realize it is going to be a long summer and the outdoor work is just beginning.  And when they see a lawn service truck drive by, they wonder how much it would cost to hire someone with a Dixie Chopper.

The wives don't help matters, either.  Women are the ones who order mulch.  Tons it.  One day a man emerges from his lair to find that a dump truck the size of New Hampshire has backed into his driveway and defecated an enormous pile against the side of his garage door.  He is still working on eradicating the pile from last year, and here is another.  The mulch is so high and thick, it is smoldering inside, and a man's deep fear is that he will uncover the hot spot and start another Chicago fire.  He sits atop the pile, lamenting, like Job . . . and wonders where it all went so wrong.

This is spring, and while the birds are laying eggs and the trees are budding, the manopausal male is soaking in the reality that, in a few years, he will no longer be able to fix the shutters, mow the grass, trim the hedges, plant the garden, till the beds, and maintain the property that provides for his existence.  He might as well dig his own grave while he's killing the moles.

Yard work is not the hobby it is cracked up to be.  The older male regards other hobbies as superior to pulling dandelions.  Some of these hobbies include peeling an apple, watching ESPN, or playing golf.

But in the spring a man will do most anything to appear normal.  He doesn't want his neighbors to think he's a slouch.  There are appearances to maintain.  But by July, he's had quite enough of the yard.

He prays for drought.  And when it gets hot, he turns up the air conditioner.