It’s the “I wanna be saved” syndrome.
It’s the “big, handsome he-man” virus.
It makes them wet.
It makes them swoon.
But some of them just don’t want to admit it or simply refuse to own up.
Until a big, handsome he-man shows up and glances at them.
I’ve listened to very smart women I know bemoan the idiotic behavior of girls over twenty-two years of age who go weak in the knees because some half-assed celebrity or middle-aged rock star is supposed to be attractive based on some raggedy-assed magazine’s most recent listing of America’s Top Fifty Hunks and then—Matt Dillon walks in.
Cue the giggles, the bleats of laughter, the hands gently sweeping Matt’s arm, the swishing flip of her hair—you know the drill.
I bring all this up to illustrate a point—women have a power to bullshit and nurture that men do not have. Men have the power to cut right to the chase and make do with whatever weapons they might have in hand.
Women are born with oodles and oodles of empathy. Most men have trouble spelling it. Empathy, I mean. Oodles rhymes with noodles, which men like to eat, and anything they can put in their mouth and may have to—at some point in life—order in. Generally speaking—with food—they tend to learn which letters go where.
Empathy is why two girls on the Central Washington College Girls Softball team carried—I repeat, carried—a member of the opposing team, Western Oregon State, around the bases—repeat, around the bases—after she hit a game-winning home run but tore a knee ligament as she reached first base and was physically unable to travel all the way to home plate in order to make the victorious blast official. As she lay in the dirt, struggling to stand and in danger of having her hit limited to a single, two of the defensive players felt bad and picked her up and did the honors she could not do herself.
Men would never do this. Not in college, not in high school. Such an event would never happen even in a grown men’s BEER league softball game.
Even if it happened to your twin brother and you were playing first base and you were and always had been bigger than him—in fact, big enough to carry him around the bases all by yourself—you still would not entertain a minuscule amoeba-sized nose hair of a cell membrane of an iota of a smidgen of the NOTION of carrying him because your testicles would not release the required enzymes from deep inside your scrotum.
Your balls would—however—immediately remind you that his home run was now a single and therefore your team was still in the game and the cold, clammy hand of defeat that was balling into a fist somewhere deep inside your chest would unclench and become a fiery desire to, once again, win at any cost.
No pain no gain.
Women see physical shortcomings and wish to heal, fix or make them disappear. They believe in hope, they believe in helping, they believe in making a difference.
Guys? They believe in roast beef.
It’s why women seek out special bras and special panty hose and plastic surgery and shoes shoes shoes. Guys? Slap on a dabful of deodorant, a pair of old Nikes and we’re pretty much good to go. Women wanna put pink floaties and life jackets and goggles and ear plugs and flippers on kids just before they climb into the baby pool WITH them. Guys? We pick a kid up and toss him into the deep end of the ADULT pool. He swims back up to the surface? He’s a keeper. He doesn’t? He’s either gonna be riding on a very short bus for a very special school due to the brain damage caused by seven minutes of oxygen deprivation or he’s taking a long dirt nap while daddy finds another mommy.
Mom says yes—dad says no.
Mom coos and coddles—dad barks and bites and boots you in the ass.
Mom cries with you—dad screams “what the hell are ya cryin’ about?”
The yin is mommy telling you how gorgeous and nice and smart you are—the yang is daddy saying get your giant head out of your evil red ass and stop acting like a retard.
There is no such thing as a helicopter dad. Unless your dad is an actual helicopter pilot.
Three words for all the prospective parents out there in America: give it up. Your money, your plans, your wishes, your clean car—all of it. Even your looks. There was a feature story in an American magazine recently showing moms what makeup was best to wear when giving birth. Which outfit to bring to wear home from the hospital. Not for the baby—the mom. You wanna know what my mom wore home? A smock.
Blue smock, white smock, smocky smock, UNsmocky smock—who gives a shit? Is the baby okay? Does it have ten fingers? What about the toes? The heart lungs kidneys liver? These should be your concerns.
I just read an article in People magazine about Jennifer Lopez and her newborn twins. By the way—People magazine reportedly paid six million dollars for exclusive rights to the first photos of J.Lo’s two kids, which probably made her jump with joy. Until she found out Brad and Angelina got eleven million for photos of their new twins—man, those box-office figures can sure be a bitch.
Anyway—J.Lo and her hubby Marc Anthony plan to raise the kids with the help of two full-time nurses and a butler. How nice.
You know who the butler was when my kids were small? Me. And “Hey—Butler!” was not amongst the appellations I heard my wife use when she needed me to get a bottle or a box of diapers or a bowl of applesauce.
J.Lo also said “I want to accomplish something this year, something to make my babies proud—like, run a triathalon.”
Uh-huh.
You wanna make your babies proud? Stay home. Raise them. Kiss them. Hug them until they almost burst.
Forget the triathlon. Run the triathMOM. That’s where you breast-feed one kid, then the other—then fuck your husband blind.
Because that’s what it’s all about. The family. My mom was always home—for better or worse. When you needed her to be there, when you wished she wasn’t because you had a bad report card in hand—every time all the time. My wife Ann’s first and last thought every single day of her life since the moment we found out she was pregnant with our first child has been this: the kids the kids the kids the kids. We may not have been perfect parents but she certainly made sure the kids were the number one priority.
If you wanna know how to raise children, you no longer even need to consult a medical encyclopedia or a self-help tome. Just watch The Real Housewives of Orange County—or its sister Manhattan show—and do the exact opposite of what those self-centered, Botox-bidden, trout pout- pursing, fishnet and finger-skirt-wearing witches do: think about the children. What THEY want, what THEY need. One of the selfish moms on the Manhattan show has a frozen face, a brownstone on New York’s Upper East Side and three teenaged kids who almost never see her. She calls herself The Countess because she’s married to a Count. Remove one key letter from her husband’s title and you will find a word that perfectly sums her up.
It’s hard to raise kids right, to work toward being a working family unit. Let’s face the facts—all families are dysfunctional. Do you know of a functional one? The Kennedys? Who may not have molested each other but somehow managed to grope their way through half of the Western Hemisphere? Not to mention enough drugs and alcohol to drown a herd of horses. Oops—didn’t mean to mention drowning. What about the Bush family? Are they functional? Compared to the Kennedys they would seem to be somewhat normal—just that little matter of the one with Asperger’s syndrome. You know—George Junior?
Listen—I look back on how my wonderful wife raised two terrific kids who have grown up with a wonderful sense of humor and two hearts big enough to care openly about each other, their parents and those who are worse off than they are—and I can be proud.
I look back on the way my parents raised us and I am eternally grateful that my mom and dad made us go to Catholic school where we learned to develop a sense of right and wrong and where Sr. Rosemarie Sullivan taught me how to dance and sing and act and ultimately even pointed me toward Emerson College, where I ended up—because of Sr. Rosemarie’s training—getting a full sch
olarship to write and act. I am grateful that my parents supported my dream. I am grateful that my dad told us the truth and my mom always gave us a hug and a kiss and they both never failed to let us know how much they loved us and we all lived under the same roof and always felt like we could turn to them for help and maybe an extra dollar or two. That to me is what a functional family is all about.
And I’ve got the scars to prove it.
CHAPTER 12
YOUR CAT SUCKS FISH HEADS IN HELL
That’s right. Your cat sucks.
Both your cats do.
Or—if you are what’s known in the normal human part of the world as Cat Crazy—all fifteen of your cats are of the world as Cat Crazy-all fifteen of your cats are simpering, hairball-spewing, self-centered wastes of domesticity.
Need proof?
How many stories have you recently heard about or seen on TV or even read about that involve a cat somehow helping to save its owner?
Answer?
Not one.
Last year?
By my Internet count—exactly zero.
In your entire lifetime?
Think about it for a second.
Zilch.
Which means—not a single, solitary one.
How many stories have you heard about or seen on tv or even read about that involve a dog somehow helping to save its owner?
Countless.
There was a whole television series about a dog who—each and every week—saved its owner or members of the owner’s family or even complete and absolute strangers. That dog was named Lassie.
And before you cat owners go off on a tangent about doggie propaganda and media bias and blah blubbedy meow, let me point out the fact that the reason there has never been a TV series about a cat who saves people is because they couldn’t find a cat capable of being trained for the purposes of working on camera.
The dog who played Lassie was so good—he played a goddam female dog.
How many times have we all read stories about a strange smell coming from some apartment where an elderly cat owner who hasn’t been seen in over a week resides—and when they break the door down they find said owner dead in a chair. Half-eaten by his or her cats.
Ever heard a story like that about a dog?
Nope.
There is one famous tale about a dog whose owner died. They buried him in a cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. His dog slept on his gravestone until he himself passed away.
They made a movie about the two of them. It’s called The Greyfriar’s Bobby.
Now there’s a statue of the dog in the center of town.
No cat statue.
Matter of fact—I don’t think there’s a statue of a cat anywhere on this earth. Why?
Because they suck.
We have a cat. He lives in a barn in the country and kills mice. The horses love him. My wife likes him. The kids think he’s cute.
Me?
I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him—which wouldn’t be very far since he’s the size of a fat raccoon on steroids. He’s the Roger Clemens of catball.
Sneakers is the name the kids gave him but I just call him what he is—Cat. And you know what? He answers to that name just fine. Because he doesn’t know he has a name. Because he doesn’t care. Because he’s a goddam cat. To him, I’m just a giant mouse he doesn’t have to kill because I open tin cans with fish and fowl in them and place them on the floor in front of his fat cat face.
But here’s my point: after the Twin Towers fell in New York City on 9/11, firefighters and cops began the daunting task of sifting through the rubble for survivors and—eventually—just human remains.
Assisted by—guess who?
That’s right.
There were no rescue cats down at Ground Zero.
There are drug-sniffing dogs at airports, dogs who search the woods when you or your kids are lost, hounds who stuff their noses full of serial killer scent and chase down murdering scum, St. Bernards who gambol down steep snowy trails looking for broken-limbed ski fanatics, Belgian shepherds who search snowpacks after an avalanche, postexplosion English terriers, ocean-rescue expert Newfoundlanders and the list goes on and on. Each and every one of them waking up to find, feed, save and savor us.
When’s the last time you stood at a street corner waiting for the walk sign to blink to life while a blind guy wearing wraparound sunglasses and carrying a cane sidled up to you—miraculously unafraid and NOT bumping into anything or anyone—because of the efforts of his faithful, duty-bound, Seeing Eye CAT?
Never? That would be the universal answer.
There is no Cat Whisperer.
A cat could give two catshits if you are in a good mood or a bad mood. The only time he/she/it decides to rub against your lower leg and purr its purry little purr is when it’s
a. Hungry
b. Really hungry
c. Hungry and in heat
Dogs have a snout that breaks into a doggie smile when they greet you.
Cats just sit there and glare.
Dogs dream. They run and yelp and spout muted barks of warning—even as their eyes are closed—probably protecting you from some awful, unknown entity.
Cats nap.
Hoping that you fall into a deep, deep sleep. So they can then begin their secret, evil rounds.
Dogs read your body language like a fine canine encyclopedia—you are a dense, vast, infinite forest of rich and finely discernible tics and tremors. One slightly arched eyebrow on your forehead has your dog translating and reacting, placing a paw on your lap—offering an eager look and willful eyes and that thump thump thumping of a happy and eager tail.
A cat? A cat ain’t even aware you just came home. And when a cat does deign to prop its gaze upon you—it’s only hoping that if you drop dead right now you do so on the couch so it can have a comfy pillow to knead its perfectly manicured paws into while it gnaws upon your flesh.
Cats do not care who the owner of the house they live in might be, since they don’t consider themselves pets. They are cunning and incomparable killing machines who spend all day long preening and fussing and staring at birds.
A dog only knows one owner—you. You are his favorite person or thing on this planet. When you come home the sun shines eternally in his dancing doggy eyeballs. Unlike mere mortal and judgmental human beings, your dog loves you no matter what. How you look, how you smell, sober or clean, sane or crazed, naked or clothed—you are his one and only best friend. You could stumble through the front door bleeding and bound and your dog would help unwrap the ropes and then begin licking your wounds.
You could chop up the asshole next-door neighbor you’ve been secretly planning to kill—suddenly snap and head over to his house with just a wood ax and twelve years of angst popping out of your carotid artery and all your darling buddy pooch would do is sniff and follow along nipping at your heels, as if to say “We gonna kill that guy now? Hah? Can I help? Hah? We gonna bury the body afterward? Hah? I love you, man.”
You can saunter into the house covered in horseshit—which I have actually done, living almost full-time on a horse farm—and the stench emanating from your boots and pants and pores is an absolute buffet for your dog. He can’t get enough of you—nuzzling your trousers, licking your face, lingering his nostrils around the nape of your neck—goddammit do you smell good to him. Horseshit is like the finest French perfume for a dog. As is almost any foul, rank, dire, vile or invasive scent you could possibly emit.
As a matter of fact, if there was a Calvin Klein in the canine universe, the carefully designed fragrances he would offer up could include Horseshit, Pit Stink, Damp Towel Rot, Pizza Breath, Ear Aroma, Cheese Foot, Yoga Crack, Just Arrived Home Vagina, Post-Tennis Tea Bag, Crusty Sock, Dried Up Scab, Under Tit Sweat, Nipple Fluff, Ass Lint—the list would be almost endless. Such is the devotion of the dog to all elements of your very being.
(Yoga Crack is another good name for a band, by the way.)
Can you
imagine any lover on earth who would say “Go jump in that pile of batshit, then roll around in that muddy field for a while, piss your own pants, puke and then please oh please rush right over here and give me a big long happy hug and a kiss—please?”
Why We Suck Page 16