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This morning, a friend sent me a link to a very funny YouTube video called Men's Brains vs. Women's Brains. I watched it, and after I finished laughing, I started thinking. (Which, in fact, is exactly what this guy says we women do: live every minute of every day with circuits firing madly in all directions - thinking, thinking, thinking all the time.)
OK, where was I? Right. (See, you’ve got to give the guy credit, he does have a point). So I started thinking about other "man" things I've observed over the years. Not male mental issues; the differences in thinking have been well documented. No, I started thinking about the physical manifestations of mysterious and inexplicable inner workings in men that are fundamentally foreign to the female of the species.
The man in the video maintains that we women have a sort of rat's nest of wiring in our heads that's all tangled and interconnected. If my personal experience is any indication of the general trend in the female population, then he's dead on target. Muddling around in all that circuitry can certainly be a plague. But it does makes life much more interesting, don't you think? Must be boring to be a man stuck with all those separate, predictable boxes. Ho hum.
OK, where was I? Right. (See, you’ve got to give the guy credit, he does have a point). So I started thinking about other "man" things I've observed over the years. Not male mental issues; the differences in thinking have been well documented. No, I started thinking about the physical manifestations of mysterious and inexplicable inner workings in men that are fundamentally foreign to the female of the species.
- Ear water
Men love Q-Tips. Have to have Q-Tips ready at hand for sopping up the water in their ears after showering. At some point I started to wonder if I was missing something, maybe I had years worth of water pooling up down there myself. So every now and then I go for it – nothing. When I’ve asked questions I get, "it feels all squishy and damp inside – I can't stand it!" Squishy and damp? Really? Maybe we have better seals inside our heads. Otherwise we might short circuit all that complicated mass of wiring. - Nighttime secretions
Now I'm not being ugly here, really I'm not. It's just a strange and mysterious fact of nature – grown males secrete some kind of yellowish substance. Very slowly, but very surely, whatever this "man oil" is, it creeps and seeps down into the pillow covering under the pillow case, and into the mattress pad under the sheets. Once it’s there, you cannot get it out. Bleach will fade but not eradicate. Oxy-Clean (my favorite all-purpose stuff) might do the trick if you let it soak for hours. My pillows don't have it, and neither does the mattress pad on my side of the bed. When I noticed this phenomenon with my sons (it starts at puberty, little boys don't have it), I thought it was due to a lack of personal hygiene (teenage boys don't score big points in this department). But, despite my conviction that it had to do with a shortage of good old soap and water, later evidence forced me to reconsider. My second husband was a scrupulously clean man. (Yes, I've had two – not counting Russ, but then, since we're not married, technically speaking he’s not my husband – but he is a man.) Anyway, #2 showered and powdered at least twice a day, and still - there it was, the dreaded yellow stain. They're not dirty, they're just men. - Spitting
Men have something that collects in their mouths that requires them to spit it out. I'm not talking about having a cold, or anything untoward like chewing tobacco, I'm talking about...? What is it? Women don't need to spit. Not only do I not need to spit, I can't. I've tried to do it. They seem to have so much fun seeing how far they can make it fly. I thought I’d give it a whirl. First I tried to do that thing they do that makes the noise. You know, the noise that accompanies that "gathering it up" phase – like a Shop Vac sucking water from the basement floor. No results. Where are they pulling it from? It sounds deep down – some kind of reservoir? (Ah-ha! Could this hidden "reservoir" be the secret to the origin of the mysterious yellow stuff?) - Non-drying skin
Have you ever seen a man put lotion on his hands, or legs, or face? Is their skin different from ours? Is it wetter, or more impervious? I don't even have particularly dry skin, but if I've been using cleaning fluids, or soap on my face, or, or, - you know, your skin just feels all dry and tight and uncomfortable – you need a little lotion. Does this not happen to them, or do they just not notice? Maybe they don't have a box for "dryness" in their heads, so it doesn't compute. Sometimes the skin on Russ's hands feels like something a snake shed and left behind, so I give him a few squirts of my "Fresh Cucumber" lotion. He loves it. Says it feels great. But he never thinks to use it on his own. I also have one that's pink and rose scented. He won't use that one. It's gotten to be a running joke. I'm a rose, and he's a cucumber.
It's as good an explanation as any.
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