Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

WARNING:  Women are born to have babies.  Men are born to remain babies.  The problem is that females of the species comes factory equipped with the hormone “estrogen,” which has the same basic molecular structure as battery acid, only slightly more corrosive.  Around the age of 26 to 27, estrogen kicks in, and activates the female internal clock, which in actuality is a ticking time bomb to a man; a ticking time bomb set to go off and force us men to grow up and be responsible for another living human being versus us men sitting around and channel surfing until our thumbs need to be replaced.

Here is what happened to me some 15 years ago…

My wife had been after me for a while to start a family.  Not wanting to have anything to do with delivery rooms, diapers, 2 AM feedings, or projectile vomiting, I was able to fend her off by dropping the subtle hint that according to recent on-line information, being pregnant and giving birth can somewhat distorts the female figure.  But she should not have to worry because some ladies look good with stretch marks stretching from her ankles to her earlobes.  And every time she would approach with baby-making on her brain, I would touch my thumbs together, stick my index fingers up into the air (forming the view-finding area associated with that of a camera lens) and move my hands around starting from her ankles and terminating at her earlobes, followed by me saying: “Yup, you’ll look just fine with body length stretch marks.

She hated when I did this, but it did keep her away for a while, about six months to be exact; however, six months and one second later she had finally had enough of my stretch mark stupidity and she snapped.   I’m not talking “snapped” in the normal nuclear blast type of snapping.   I’m talking snapping like right out of a scene from my favorite movie “Jaws” type of snapping.

At first I thought the woman was having some sort of unfixable neurological convulsion.  Her eyes started fluttering extremely fast, like four hundred times within about like three seconds.  (I’m guessing here because I did not have a strobe light or time lapse photography equipment handy for a more accurate reading).  It turned out not to be a convulsion, but rather my male maternal nightmare.

The woman I loved, the woman I promised to be with for the rest of my life, “till death due us part,” started to exhibit (and I’m not making this up) shark attack posturing.   Seriously, first her back arched, then her arms pointed straight down, then her entire body stiffened.  Finally, she started to slowly circle me.

Thanks to watching every “Under Sea World Of Jacques-Yves Cousteau” documentary three hundred times, I was able to turn and follow her, making sure to keep eye contact while at the same time shielding myself with both my scuba tank and underwater camera.  It was dusk and the remaining slivers of light penetrating the half-drawn venetian blinds made her toothy hide glisten.

She got closer and closer with each pass.  At one point she got close enough to bump me with her head and brush against me with her body.  This is how sharks taste their pray before pouncing.  I pushed her away with my camera.  Things were getting tense—my gauges were indicating that my oxygen was running low, dusk was giving away to nightfall, and my visibility was quickly fading.

I momentarily lost sight of her in the shadows of our living room near the sofa.  Things were dead still for about thirty seconds.  Then suddenly, out of nowhere and from behind, she grabbed me by my left thigh and bit down.  Her dark eyes, her doll’s eyes rolled over white, and I began that high-pitched screaming.  (I told you that “Jaws” was my favorite movie.)

Anyway, she slammed me into the staircase!  I frantically grabbed the banister with my left hand and began repeatedly striking her in the snout with my right hand.  But it was no use.  The assault was too vicious; she was oozing with Estrogen!   Then she started to violently shake her head from side to side which made me lose my grip, and I was ripped from the railing.   “GOD HELP ME,” I screamed!   The last thing I remember before passing out was being dragged into the bedroom.

Two days later I awoke, clothes tattered and torn, bruises and scrapes from head to toe.  Nine months to the day after the attack my son, Douglas William, joined the family.   Things were quiet for a little more than a year before the estrogen kicked back in, and I was attacked again.  Nine months to the day after the second attacked my daughter, Sara Elizabeth, joined the family.

Fortunately, I survived both attacks without loss of life or limb, and the feeling eventually returned to my (ahem) well, you know.   However, this is NOT always the case.  So, for you younger guys out there who have spouses who are circling you to populate your home with screaming dirty-diaper-wearing toddlers, here is a tip:  sit around in your disgusting underwear ALL the time, vigorously scratch at yourself in the most personal of places, and drip beer on your belly.  Yes, admittedly, it is gross, but this tip makes for one heck of a shark repellent.   And I wish I knew about it back then.