LITTLE BOYS GROW TO BE MEN...

The HUMOROUS perils of being a single mom of two boys...need I say more? God knows my sense of humor gets me through the day.

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LITTLE BOYS GROW TO BE MEN...
by D.R. Siebert

One evening while sitting comfortably on the sofa, I am half heartedly watching reruns of Law & Order because my mind has drifted off to God knows where. A health care commercial peaks my curiosity and catchs my attention enough to watch intently. Two men tie themselves to one another. The bigger guy stands on the roof while the smaller guy intends to static line down the side of the house to paint the spot he couldn't reach with the ladder. As the smaller man jumps, both men are catapulted from the roof into the large tree next to the house. I was laughing in hysterics. Ironically, sitting next to me on the floor are my two young gentlemen tied together by the lifeline of the Nintendo DS cable. Watching them interact with each other, my loving look turns to amusement when I can all but vividly picture my two young sons as men on the roof of the house. "Oh my gosh," I then realize this commercial actually depicts a typical male way of thinking. In that moment, the lucidity I experience is enlighening and I am able to comprehend the little idiosyncrasies that exasperate me about the role of the male gender and the drive that leads them to their, sometimes, unexplainable behavior. I honestly believe most male traits are innate, stemming back to "cro-Magnon" days. Wouldn't ya say, dating rituals in the 20th century actually do still reflect the hunter gatherer mentality of long ago? Back then, males were inclined to kill a saber-toothed tiger or something to feed a woman so she would mate with him so his gene had the strongest survival potential. Today's males sport the mentality, if I take her to a nice restaurant for dinner I have a good chance of boinking her. Frankly, I see no difference. Nonetheless, I do firmly believe not all male traits are innate and some male traits are a learned behavior stemming from infancy while observing other male role models. All I can say is "toilet seat."

With two males in the house, I am out numbered and the issues are beginning to gnaw at me on a much deeper level. After the commercial, I bring the conversation up at a soccer practice. The women snicker and several male species are present to defend themselves or quite the contrary. Do you know that some of the males actually admit to me they thought of picking the lawn mower up to trim the hedges? I wonder if the thought ever occurred to them to use hedge trimmers for that job? "Ah-huh," here is an epiphany, hedge trimmers were probably invented by a man who picked up the lawn mower and lost a couple fingers. Then again, there is no denying that men believe duct tape and a hammer will fix anything. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, at moments like this, my mind wonders to the comical focus on the differences between men and women. Gray's rendition of gender differences portray the men as a Martian "Mr. Fix-it" and the women as Venusians who run the "Home Improvement Committee." For example, the Martians go to their cave to sort things out alone while the Venusians go to the well for emotional cleansing. Now, if one cannot find the differences between the sexes as prime material for a stand up comedy routine, I cannot even begin to tell you what else may be funnier than the commercial of two men ending up in a tree.

Firstly, the biggest issue I have with the male gender in my house is their inability to actually get their clothes into the laundry basket. No matter where I place the square plastic box, I notice their clothes always and I do mean always end up next to it. One day, I had reached wit's end with my boys concerning this innate-learned male practice. Now mind you, here I stood before a seven year old and a ten-year-old, holding a laundry basket, asking the question I so desperately need answered. "Sons, do you not like the laundry basket mom purchased? Would you like a different color or maybe a different shape?" They stare at me blankly and tote the facial expressions like I was off my rocker. I finish my 'there are three of us living in this house lecture' and proceed to ask, "Tell me sons, what should I do to make your life easier and to please you?" Since they both respond by saying they like the square white plastic laundry basket, I continue to display step-by-step instructions on how to put the dirty clothes inside the basket. I often ponder my own practices, maybe it is I who was doing this wrong and life would be easier if we women would just simply follow them around with the basket.

The trash is fast becoming another one of my big issues. Without fail, Monday comes around every week and yet every week I have to remind the two little men in my life to take the trash to the curb. I try post-it notes and I even go as far as placing the trash in front of the door. Only to have all my futile attempts ignored, once again, I resort to my basic step-by-step instructions of what the trash bag looks like. Also, while lecturing, I actually generate the trash bill to show that there really is a trash company which graces our curbside once a week. Believe it or not, they are amazed to find out the trash company did not make house calls. All this time they believed the trash company was actually coming into the house to collect the rubbish. As for all those times the trash mysteriously was sported to the curb, they are beginning to believe it was cleaning fairies, after all, they still believe in the tooth fairy. Then I begin to wonder if maybe there are two separate gender calendars out there on the market and the male version left Monday off and just maybe men secretly know something us women do not know.

And last but not least, the infamous toilet seat battles. I know men do not yell at us women to put the toiltet seat up. But do men have any idea what it is like to sit down and fall in, no, because if they did they would surely find it in their hearts to drop that lid. From the start, I taught my boys to put the toilet seat down and I did this from the first day of potty training. I told them they have to put the lid down, so, the dog would not drink out of the toilet. They would look at me funny and say, "Mom, we don't have a dog." However, given time, it just so happens a dog wanders up onto our porch when the boys reached the tender age of seven years old and ten years old. Upon finding their treasure exclaim, "God must have been so very happy with us for putting the toilet seat down all this time he gave us a dog." I know one day they will understand the toilet seat concept, but for now, I'll leave it alone and let them believe it is for the dog. Nevertheless, I do know, when my boys are older, they will have very happy wives and their wives will have me to thank for breaking the cycle.

I find, men will go to great lengths to walk over or walk around to avoid unnecessary exertion in the house. All the while, women are left to bend, walk, lift, juggle and only to be left with the stinging remark, "I would have done that for you." Which leads me to now contemplate, men's words differ from what they actually mean. I have sat long and thought hard over this male secret language. I drink many cups of coffee and come up with the conclusion that sentence can only mean one thing, dare I say it, "you do it so well because you have had lots of practice." This is what I have been left to consider, the fact men experience a right of passage and somewhere along the line when they reach that point all men receive the handbook to the Secrets of the Ya-Ya Brotherhood. Then again, the secret language of men may be material for another creative nonfiction piece. My final thought, upon total exasperation, I have come to the conclusion that men have us bending at the waist and running around wearing pedometers for our own benefit. This way they can honestly respond "NO" when we ask the silly question, "does this make me look fat?" You see, they are well aware of the rigors of basic training they put us through while caring for them.

Ladies, we will always have a man by the name of Ernest Godward to thank for the invention of the hairpin in 1901.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

We had no toilet seat to raise in our outhouse, and everyone, male and female, checked for scorpions, spiders and wasps before sitting down. (I'm from Arkansas) No one wanted to get up on a cold winter night and walk out to the outhouse. (what did we do?) I dropped the pee bucket on my big toe when I was four, spilling 32 ounces of other people's urine on the kitchen floor, then I slipped and fell in it. I was so traumatized by the horrible event, that for a week afterwards, I didn't know who I was. When I finally lived in a house with a bathroom, I wanted to sleep in there. Bottom line is that some of us fellers got a different kind of toilet training.

Oh, anyway, you know you wouldn't have us any other way. Would you? Sam

[A.J. Smith]

Well, My Lady, I am surely busted...defenseless. I enjoyed your humor and insight here...as always, a nice glimpse into your beautiful psyche. Good thing my mom trained me to put the lid down, too...can't stand it up (and she used that dog-based rationale, too).