[145] in Humor
HUMOR: Dave - MEN AND HOUSEWORK, WOMEN AND JOCK ITCH
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Mar 21 23:29:02 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 23:26:38 EST
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 94 16:21:50 PST
From: ckleinja@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
Subject: HUMOR: Dave rerun -- men and housework
MEN AND HOUSEWORK, WOMEN AND JOCK ITCH
by Dave Barry (1992)
Today I want to talk to you husbands about housework, and the
importance of helping your wives with ...
HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, MEN. I see you trying to sneak out of this
article. Get back in here and listen up:
The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United
Nations, recently did a survey asking women around the world how much
help we men give them with the housework. According to the results,
most women think we're doing a splendid job.
I'm joking of course. The women basically said that, in terms of
sharing the housework burden, having a man around is like having a 197-
pound lint ball permanently bonded to the sofa, operating the TV remote
control and periodically generating dirty underwear.
This kind of criticism is nothing new. Somebody is always
surveying women about men, and men ALWAYS come out looking bad. Just
once I'd like to see a survey with questions that would tend to put men
in a more positive light, such as:
-- ``Which gender, on the average, is more likely to demonstrate
the patience and perseverance necessary to teach a small child how
to spit?''
-- ``In the event of a family emergency, which gender is most
likely to be able to remember -- coolly, calmly and without panic
-- what position Clarence `Choo Choo' Coleman played?''
But surveys never ask this type of question. They always ask about
female-oriented qualities such as maturity, sensitivity, communication,
commitment, ability to remember the names of all the children, etc. --
as if those were the only issues that mattered; as if men did not have
unique needs and problems of their own; as if there were NO SUCH THING
as jock itch.
Just recently my wife and I were in South Miami Beach, sitting at
an outdoor cafe with a lovely view of palm trees and the beach, and
directly in front of us, about 25 yards away, was a man clearly
experiencing a life-threatening need to scratch himself.
Unfortunately he was in a wide-open area, wearing nothing except a
bathing suit about the size of a lady's wristwatch. Trying hard to look
casual, he lay down sideways, pretending to be a guy relaxing in the
sun. He glanced around to see if anybody was watching and then GROPE,
he made a lighting-fast move to ease his discomfort, and then he
glanced around again, and then GROPE, and then another glance, and then
GROPE and then a glance and then GROPEGROPEGROPEGROPE he lost control
of himself and plunged in frantically with both hands, too absorbed in
his task to realize that he had now surpassed the Atlantic Ocean as a
local tourist attraction, with a large crowd watching him and small
banner-towing airplanes making U-turns to come back for a second
look.
I know you men are thinking: ``Whoa, I can definitely feel for
that guy, so to speak.'' On the other hand, my wife, a member of the
so-called ``sensitive'' gender, was LAUGHING. But does the
International Labor Organization do a survey about this sensitive
issue? No, it picks housework, which happens to be a weak point with us
men. This is not our fault. We spent millions of years functioning as
the food providers in the family, and thus we are temperamentally and
biologically more suited to aggressively physical, strenuous, hunter-
gatherer types of activities, such as golf.
Plus, on those rare occasions when a man does attempt to help out
with some household responsibility, such as getting the kids dressed
for school, he often discovers that his wife has established a lot of
picky, technical rules, and if he doesn't do everything exactly right,
he gets corrected, until finally he just gets fed up.
``Wait a minute,'' he snaps. ``Are you telling me that they have
to wear shoes EVERY SINGLE DAY?'' And then he stomps off and tries to
calm himself down by gripping his putter.
Another problem is that TV commercials for housework-type products
are always aimed at women. We need commercials that would make
housework appealing to guys. For example, there could be one where a
guy opens up his refrigerator and sees ... The Swedish Bikini Team!
They're trapped! Their feet are stuck in the dense brown goo that
formed when barbecue sauce spilled onto the hydrator! So the guy grabs
some Pine Sol and uses its exclusive grease-cutting formula to rescue
the Bikini Team members, who gather around him and express their
gratitude by leaning over a lot.
Yes, the advertising industry could definitely be doing a better
job. But in the end, men, it's up to you to make more of an effort to
help out around the home. At the same time, you women out there need to
become more aware of an important fact, and one that is often
overlooked amid the endless day-to-day hassles involved in running a
household: ``Choo Choo'' Coleman was a catcher.
(C) 1992 THE MIAMI HERALD
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
