Many years ago, I was lying around with my then girlfriend chatting about silly stuff and she innocently asks, “If you could change one thing about me what would it be?” Not being a complete idiot, I demour, “Nothing, I love you just the way you are.” “No, really.” “Really, nothing.” Little did I know that this was my first foray into the infamous Girl Trap. I would spend the rest of my life learning to recognize and then avoid answering these little innocent questions that mask a reservoir of indignation, insecurity, and even resentment.

Maybe it was the lilt in my girlfriend’s voice or the playful twinkle in her eye, but after a few rounds of this game, she starts to wear me down. I wonder, “Maybe she really wants me to say something. No, just keep saying, ‘Nothing.’” I sheepishly repeat, “Really, there is nothing I would change.” Of course nowadays, with years of mine-detection under my belt, I would never question my first reaction. Just stick to the story and it’ll pass. Some questions are so obvious, they’re easy to dismiss and end instantly. My wife once threw out, “If I died, which one of my friends would you date?” I confidently shot back, “If you died, I wouldn’t date. I’d just lay on the floor and cry.” “But after you cried,” she plied. “Nope, just crying for the rest of my life.” End of story. Case closed.

Now my girlfriend is really pressing, insisting, “I won’t get mad. I really am curious.” Okay fine. I give up. I’ll think of something to change. I struggle for what seemed like an eternity. The great thing about young love is there really was very little I would change about my 5’2” dream girl. There are a few emotional swings I’d love to get rid of, but I know that’s a losing proposition. Finally, I breakdown. “I guess you could have longer legs.” She spews forth, “Oh sure, pick something I can’t do anything about.” I was so weak and naive back then.

originally posted 8/1/11

Amy Schumer is one of the hottest comedians going right now. Here’s one of the reason’s why.

A while ago, we were all watching a TV show and there was a sexual reference that my son and I chuckled at but my wife didn’t get. It was fun to watch my son explain to his mother what the sexual innuendo actually meant in terms that wouldn’t get him thrown out of the house. Where was my wife in junior high?

While at the gym a few days later, I overheard a conversation between a group of women in their 50s that went something like this. “I need to go home and take care of my hedges and trim my bush.” My inner junior higher is already chuckling a little under my breath. Another replies, “I need to go home and take care of my trees.” They discuss hiring a man and joke of woodland creatures doing the work. “What I really need is a good beaver man.” Another chimes in “I need a good beaver man too!” It continues on this way for quite some time. Now as I live in a conservative state and these women were 50 and kind of frumpy, I’m guessing they were laughing at the vision of a small woodland creature that was really good at pruning trees. Crazy. So, now I’m really wondering, where were all the women during junior high school?

I remember as a junior higher there was a guy on my paper route that had bumper stickers all over his walls and one said, “Save a tree, eat a beaver” which I found funny. I also remember having a much different view of the bumper sticker a few weeks later when I learned a different meaning for the word in the boy’s locker room.

Although, I guess men aren’t immune to missing those locker room life lessons. Many years later, my extremely conservative religious father-in-law was very into flying and wanted to get a very popular type of float plane called a Beaver. In passing, one day, a fellow pilot had said, “I never met a Beaver I didn’t like,” and my father-in-law started dropping this line to everyone he met. I remember the conversation I had with my brother-in-laws about who was going to tell him he might want to stop. The oldest brother got the unenviable task. I’m sure the conversation was very similar to the conversation I had with my girl-friend in college who liked to respond “No thank you, once you’ve had black you never go back” whenever she was asked if she liked cream in her coffee. I digress.

So apparently, it was determined that every junior high boy would get indoctrinated into the crude language of sex, while girls talked about something else. But apparently this doesn’t apply pre 1960s. Which explains why a buddy of mine’s mother bought him a KumonIwannalay U “college” T-shirt on a trip to Hawaii when he was in High School and HE wore it proudly until someone told his dad what it meant.

originally posted 7/27/11