The 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Surprised When Men are Stupid

The 12th Commandment: Thou Shalt Gather Rocks Suitable for Throwing

It’s pretty clear to me that during the course of this commentary, possibly already, many men who read this are going to be offended and insulted. To them, I say “Fox smells his own hole.” Or something like that because it’s been my experience that when an observation is made on the human condition, the people most offended are the ones most guilty of being a prime example of the very comments that set them off in the first place.

Women pretty much already know about all of this, so for us, it’s just going to be a head nodding, knowing smile kind of bonding session that could possibly lead to the kind of one-upsmanship only found in circles of women discussing their husbands.

OK. We know for a fact that in the male of our species, the common head cold is fatal. We know that although almost ALL ailments are fatal in men, the fact that they are almost certainly dying and can’t seem to remind us of that fact too many times, will still not be enough of a motivating factor for them to shuck their fevered asses to a physician. We know, and have commented at length on the fact, that if procreation were up to men, dinosaurs would still rule the earth. Yet even so, even in the face of their well-advertised pain and rapidly declining life span, they are still capable of acts they consider manly and heroic and women rightly label dumb as shit.

Take my husband as an example why don’t you? Not quite three days ago, while attending his twice-weekly karate class, he managed to absorb a kick from a second degree black belt that was perfectly timed, perfectly placed and perfectly excruciating in that it broke three of my husband’s ribs and detached the supporting musculature, thereby creating pressure against his lungs, making it not only painful, but impossible to breathe deeply. I know it had to hurt like a mad bastard because he drove himSELF to the emergency room. (Yes, I know. That’s an entirely different blog entry, thank you.) He’s been moaning, crying and doped up ever since. Night of the living dead doped up. Squinty eyed, shuffling, speaking barely above a whisper, chewing his food like a 90 year old man, not quite passed out doped up. Yet this morning, he calls me and he says to me “OK. I know you’re going to be angry, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m taking a pill and I’m doing it anyway.” I asked him to please explain just what the hell he was talking about. It appears that he was taking advantage of our neighbor, the mighty and infinitely snoopy Medusa, being out of town and adding another section to our six foot high, solid board on board fence in her absence. By himself.

Translated, this means he was going to be running power tools, digging a three foot deep hole, mixing and dumping concrete, and building an 8 foot section of solid board fence with three broken ribs and torn muscles, jacked to the gills on pain killers.

I said “are you completely insane?” He said “maybe, but the fence’ll be done by the time you get home.”

Frankly, I’d like to start the wagering right now. I’ve got 10 bucks riding on the fence being partially done, and him face down in the dewy lawn, snoring, while the power saw skips madly across the yard. Any takers?