Pessimistic Politics: Men iz Smart

So, I just got back from my semi-yearly crawl through the pits of Hell.

I probably should elaborate. My mother inherited a cottage located in a small lakeside community in Michigan. It’s a simple place, by which I mean the water is as clean as a used bike tire, and the inside never fails to be fifty-seven degrees too hot or cold if the temperature outside isn’t just right. Despite these shortcomings, it’s still a nice place, except for the fact that one of the most horrible pits Hell has to offer is conveniently located under the house.

The “basement” of the house is nothing more that cinder blocks, supports, and a whole lot of mud. The only thing separating the basement from the outside, where all of the vicious rodents, snakes, and toads are, is a broken screen and a wooden board covered in tarp. While these defenses have managed to keep most of the horrors of nature out, the bugs, specifically the ones from the slimy kingdom, managed to break through and make their homes down there.

Getting into the basement requires me to duck down in a three by three foot opening three feet high, and invariably banging my head on way down, right into a patch of something slimy. Walking on hands and knees, I must balance on some wobbly boards, or risk falling into the gushy mud “floor” and sink into it, disappearing forever. Staying on the boards isn’t too safe, either, since I run the risk of banging my head on the rafters or getting stuck by a single rusty nail embedded in the walkway. All of these dangers occur in a place where spiders grow to the size of cows and eat small children for appetizers. If Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield wound up down here, they would crawl their way back to the Spencer Estate faster than you can say “plot hole.”

And what reason would I have to brave irate toads, slimy bugs, spider-cattle, mud, and tetanus? Plumbing, that’s what. Because of some genius design, the pump that extracts water from a nearby well, water that we need to drink, then spit out, because it is ninety-three percent sulfur, is located in the far corner of the basement. Since this is a cottage, the pump has to be drained and dismantled in the winter, or the pipes will explode, and a rather expensive hairy man will have to go down there and fix it. I don’t want someone’s death by a rapid, mud-dwelling toad on my conscience, even though, for what they would be paid, they should be able to stare down tank-sized spiders without breaking a sweat. If we want water the next spring, then I have to crawl down there and put everything back together. I’m starting to think that it would be less of a hassle to shower with bottled water.

I am certain that most of my male readers (or at least the ones that have seen the sun directly within the last couple of days) are figuratively pointing and laughing at me, scratching themselves and spilling beer on their keyboards. This is a stabbing guess, since I also believe that most of my readers don’t have a girlfriend who can be measured in something other than kilobytes. But my real point is that the elusive manly readers probably think that I’m a girly wuss. I respond humbly to this by saying that you are a stupid moron.

Actually, this is truer than you’d realize. When people think of a guy who’s big and tough and manly, they think of a guy who knocks over boulders with his head and eats nails for an evening snack. The grunting, sweating, and bigness of the male psyche is an important aspect of the male community to this day, even though it’s basically worthless now.

Manliness had its place in society, back when fire was the newest trend. Being big and powerful meant that a man could beat potential food to death with a club and mate with females. While men weren’t that concerned with self-image, the manly aspect of men was important to ensure the survival of humankind. And what motivation is there to attack a beast twenty times larger than you with a stick? Stupidity.

The concept of manliness is firmly based in the school of stupidity. If you think about it, a lot of the things manly men do nowadays are pointless, moronic, and could inflict bodily harm on themselves. A good example of this is weightlifting. While weightlifting is generally a healthy thing, when a man’s weightlifting ability is put to question, things get dangerous. A man will try to lift three times what he’s ever lifted in his entire life, most likely killing himself in the process. And what is a man’s motivation for doing something so stupid?

Sex.

Sex is pretty much a man’s motivation for everything. He stays in shape so he can look good and make women desire him so he can have sex with them. He makes money so he can take woman out on dates so he can have sex with them. He commits acts of manliness by doing extremely stupid and dangerous things so he can impress women so he can have sex with them.

This baffles me, because most women don’t seem to be impressed by this kind of thing. At least not the kind of women worth the trouble of impressing. If you can win a woman over just by pointlessly lifting a heavy thing, you should question the quality of the woman. Usually, these type of women don’t need a whole lot of motivation to get friendly with men, which is fine for guys who want to run the risk of appearing on Jerry Springer under the episode entitled “I Sleep with Any Guy Who can Lift Heavy Stuff!”

I guess it’s no surprise that men think that being manly attracts women, since manliness is based in the realm of stupidity. It’s safe to assume that being manly does not equal bravery, since bravery is defying known dangers for a reasonable purpose. Stupidity is being ignorant or unappreciative of danger for something stupid. A brave person will jump in front of a car to save child from being run over by it, knowingly risking his or her life to save another. A manly man will hurl himself in front a car on a bet.

I believe that women make up the largely brave portion of the population. If a woman had to, she would crawl into the icky underside of a cottage and prep the pump without complaining, whereas I whine like a soiled baby when I have to do it. My mother did it for years and never complained. On second thought, that may be just because she transcended from woman to a mother, and therefore is required by law to do all of the crud work.

For those of you who think I’m sucking up to women, I assure you that I am, because they are clearly more in control of things than we guys are. They deal with childbirth; we can’t handle a flu without whining like we’re actively losing a limb.

Manliness has since become a burden in today’s society, as we don’t need any more ignorance gumming up the works. However, manliness will never go away. Fortunately, some aspects of manliness can help keep society from falling into complete chaos.

My prediction is that the manliest men will be regulated to doing grunt work. They can lift heavy objects, grunt, sweat, flex, and generally look big and strong. The women who find the ability to lift heavy objects a sign of the perfect man will have the job of watching the manly men and look impressed in order to keep them motivated. Birth rates of morons will rise, but the more peons, the better.

Meanwhile, the technologically advanced smart people will be the new sex symbols, especially website authors. They will be desired by the women who are hard to impress, and the smart genes will be past on to the next generation of smart people. At least I hope so, because it’s my only hope for mating.

So I’m not ashamed of my freaking out about the slimy bugs and evil toads, because the men who would brave these hazards are idiots and will evolve into mediocrity. Actually, they’ve been there for a while now, it’s just no one noticed.