A Houseful of Women

Today marks the day of my wife's annual ornament exchange. Friends and family come from all over metro Detroit to exchange homemade Christmas ornaments. It's a good time, and the gifts are exchanged randomly, so there's an element of surprise that adds to the festivities.

So what does a manly man do in a houseful of women? He hides on the computer, that's what. Manly men know that you can't take a woman two falls out of three when it's one on one. When there's 18, that just means 18 times the horse whuppin'.

Manly men also don't mind admitting this. The ones who say they can take 'em, well, they lie, and manly men know that. Manly men are comfortable with the limits of their manly man-ness. And they aren't fools, either. They know that manly men play fair, and that the fight will be fair. With the female of the species, they're devious. You don't love them, you don't listen, you just don't 'get' it; these are the tools of their trade when you have the upper hand. Then you capitulate.

All right, maybe manly men don't 'get' it. But they're survivors. They live to fight another day. Whenceforth it happens all over again.

This isn't going the way I had intended. Not at all.