That might be overkill

Hey, I have lived through the feminist era. I believe that feminist rhetoric has been around for over forty years now, but that’s not long enough to change my mind.

You can’t tell me that men and women are the same. I’m sorry, maybe on some other planet—not Venus or Mars though.

It’s the way they tackle problems that is so different. And I’m not talking about emotional ones where opposite ends of the galaxy might describe the gulf.

I’m referring to just plain old tasks like putting a letter in an envelope, for instance. When women have a big letter and a small envelope, they carefully fold the letter until it fits just right. Men, well they start jamming the letter into the envelope. If it doesn’t slide right in, they use a little more muscle, and then a little more. Soon they need a new envelope.

I’m sure it has something to do with their being the stronger of the species: “Yes, I am stronger than this piece of paper and I can put it inside this envelope.” It’s like they approach everything with a “muscle mentality.” Now there’s an oxymoron.

My daughters and I have code words for the phenomenon. We can comment without the men in our lives even getting it.

It goes like this:

“Dad, will you empty my kitchen garbage can while I answer the phone?”

“Okay, hang in there. The weather is almost over. I have to see if it is going to rain.”

Dad rattles around in the kitchen and finally sits back down to watch the news.

Later, the women are cleaning the kitchen.

“Mom, remind me never to ask Dad to empty the garbage again, especially when I have a brand new $90 commercial can.”

“Was it ‘pull a little harder’?”

“No not this time.”

“It must have been ‘push a little harder.’”

“Well, actually—this might be a new one—it was ‘stomp a little harder.” Since the lid didn’t fly up to a ninety-degree angle and the garbage bag jump right out into his hand when he stepped on the “foot-pedal,”
he stepped a little harder. Now I need a new garbage can.”

“I get it. But what happened to the wall in the dining room? Someone is going to have to spackle that mess now.”

“Well, ‘my man’ was hanging that calendar you gave me, and it was a case of ‘square peg, round hole,’ if you know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah, I believe I do. And what about those chips in the front sidewalk? Was someone smashing ants?”

“That’s right.”

“Let me guess. He couldn’t kill them fast enough, so he had to ‘get a bigger hammer?’”

“How did you guess?”

“He got that from his dad.”

Me again: “Okay, but I still don’t understand why is his brother is limping.”

“Well, you know how those firebugs keep swarming on the driveway? So he was squashing bugs as well, only he wasn’t using anything but his feet. He could kill them fast enough alright since there were hundreds in a clump, but he simply thought that dead wasn’t good enough. So he…”

“He got that from his grandpa.”