Short Straw Anyone? Humour by Nicky Webber

Short Straw Anyone? Humour by Nicky Webber

A friend recently complained that women always get the short straw. They suffer menstruation, pregnancy, hormone fluctuations, menopause, the lions share of child rearing, housework and of course men!

I listened attentively acknowledging all she was being saying. When she finally paused to sip her tea, I caught her eye and said. ”Why then, do men die earlier?”

This proposition hung in the silent air! I took the opportunistic gap to explain. Let’s take the average guy – there are so many it’s not hard to visualize one. He loves meat and sport – both washed down with several beers. If he didn’t have a wife, kids and a fat mortgage he would mainline on a diet of those three things. And when I say sport – I am talking about it in the broadest possible sense. You do realize I mean TOTAL control of the TV remote too!

We might as well count sex under the “sport” category as well. The same basic parameters apply in most men’s minds. They see it as a type of sport, between themselves, the whole aggressive stance about beating off male competition and getting the girl. Once they have them in bed it seems to be a race, involving an intense desire to win!

Thus all the jokes about lack of foreplay (is that a new type of golf club?), romance, (no thanks), and female anatomy (it still remains a mystery to most of them). The obsession with winning explains the male propensity to show-off and also why men are more likely to have accidents in wild drunken activities from speeding to strange and unusual games caught on video and uploaded on YouTube. God knows what the Aliens will think when they finally get here. They won’t take us seriously if we poppy up with a male after they ask, “take me to your leader!”

Being the beater – beating off all other males is a stressful existence. But it’s an instinctive force, ever persuasive, from our primitive cavemen days. It’s in their basic DNA and they can’t fight it so they act it out until they are about 79.8 (average life expectancy of most men)!

Winning is everything. I guess we should be grateful that they don’t drag us by the hair into the cave and grunt for us to assume the position! So modern living has created a thin veneer of civilization – but the pressure is still on the male to perform. Take farting for instance. If you are a man reading this you are probably already grinning broadly. It doesn’t matter how often and how loud. They are eternally entertained by their own ability to out blast the competition. Childlike? Check. Competitive? Check. Primitive? Check. Entertaining? Only if you have Y-chromosomes, so I rest my case!

Their original identity is now wrapped up in the trappings of mere things. Men were the initiators of capitalism and consumerism too. A faster, bigger car is an obvious symbol of masculinity and dominance over the tribe. Of course that adds more stress to the average male these days, as the tribe is so huge. The men where he works would out number and out manouvre him 100 times over. The poor sod. Living in cities exposes men to so many taunts and frustrations – daily he is confronted by fitter, younger, trimmer and better branded cars than his own. It’s a daily insult – no wonder he comes home after an hour’s commute in peak traffic and grunts for a beer and turns on TV. He is using this to substitute for hiding in the cave and licking his ego bashed wounds.

Another life shortening issue for the male species - is diet. Most mean love meat and especially barbequed meat, with lots of fat and ridges of blackened Acrylamide (toxic cancer causing chemicals found in burnt meat) and add alcohol into the mix and you have a body being subjected to high levels of oxidation – free radical damage, when all he wants is to eat around the campfire. So of course cancers, heart disease mixed with poor diet and stress is a perfect combo to knock a few years off your life expectancy. What’s a few years anyway if you can guzzle down cold beers around the Barbie and talk non-threatening rugby with your mates?

The shrinking life span is compounded by the testosterone driven approach most males have to communication. Women will talk, talk and talk. Cry, laugh and have full-on sessions going over it all with various friends. It’s therapy. Men remain silent, aloof and firmly in the dark recesses of their cave. Too proud to accept any failings and desperate not to be defined by any emotional outburst – other than the power and control they demonstrate in anger. Expressing anger is a good one, it shows strength, dominance and that age old thing of being right. Mr. Right. Many women are married to Mr. Right. I was shocked to recently discover that it’s a contemporary form of polygamy – I remember being taken aback when a friend admitted she was married to Mr. Right too. What unholy satanic perversion was this?!!

Over the next 12 months I undertook a survey of every female I came across. I would somehow weave into the conversation – even if just ordering a coffee.
Trim Latte please.
Do you want it in a cup or a glass?
Glass – thanks. Tell me – do you know Mr. Right?
Hell yeah – I’m married to him!
My mouth would fall open and I would exclaim in mock horror, “I am too!”

I mean how many Mr. Rights are there? I’ve had to give up the surveying now – although it was a pleasant and humorous interlude with strangers – because I realized about 90% of females are married to Mr. Right and the other 10% are just in training!

So when you think about it – much of what makes a man, a man is what kills him sooner!

Competitive, in the boardroom and the bedroom, poor diet, inability to openly express themselves, internalizes problems or bursts into uncontrollable rage over something a female would just dust off and firmly hide under the carpet where the dust bunnies nest. No wonder men’s bodies give up sooner. Some are finally starting to learn not to sweat the small stuff. But many just live to cherish the sweat addicted lifestyle they crave!

In conclusion, I think their straw is a lot shorter than females. Especially when you consider all the pressure and stress they create for themselves. You have to have huge sympathy and respect for their achievements in their shorter life – being driven has got us to the moon…and back! Of course it has also contributed to wars, famine and devastation of the Earth’s resources too!