Woody Cavenaugh

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that there are differences between women and men. Heck, if you only had one of the seven senses you could quickly tell one gender from the other. (Your experience may vary depending on sense. Void where prohibited by law.)

Most of the time we walk around aware of it like we are aware of the fact that the air is warm, our underwear chafes, and that person probably shouldn't dress like that in public. i.e., we know its going on, but we don't always pay attention to it. A whole bunch of things has happened to me in the past couple of days that made me realize that it was my time to write.

Last night I got to watch some of the differences as an impartial observer, and it just reminded me one more time how great it is to be so different. (And I mean in more than just in the seeing, smelling, and touching way.) No, I just said I wasn't in a strip club. I don't like strip clubs*.

I remember the last time I was traumatized by my wife. We were doing spring cleaning. In my house it is that magical time of year when Sara goes through my things throwing as much of it away as she can before I end up clutching a tattered Dr. Who T-shirt to my chest while rocking gently under a table covered in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys. At this point she sighs, announces that she's finished (for now) and tries to coax me out with food and Cheerwine. There are some wounds not even Bojangles and Cheerwine can heal.

The past few days I have been witness to Sara offering her traumatic skills to another guy. Essentially, I sit back in a corner being my usual lazy self and read comic books while she forces this guy to throw his precious memories in the trash. I realize now that it is a truly necessary thing. That doesn't mean that I'm suddenly not going to end up back under the table rocking. You can count on the fact that I will be under the table clutching some treasure from my past. We all have to be good at something.

The difference here is obvious but not necessarily noticed. Our whole society is based on this simple fact. Men can become emotionally attached to physical things, women can't. Women's clothing is made cheaply, and sold at top dollar. The typical woman buys cloths seasonally, some even go shopping every week. A whole industry is based on this simple natural law. Same thing with hair styles. Guys, how many pairs of underwear you have with holes in the crotch? Some of them? Most of them? All of them? You finally buy a three pack of briefs do you throw away the three worst pairs? Nope, we refer to these ancient holey drawers as "Backups", "Emergency Backups", or "Emergency Underpants". No, wait, I'm wrong, no one refers to them as "Emergency Underpants". No one.

When a relationship fails, women purge. You know, "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair". 90% of the girls I dated ended the relationship with fire. The others just threw stuff away. Guys, have a different philosophy. i.e. "If you do not remember the past you will be doomed to repeat it." I kept** boxes organized by girlfriend's last name and year of every card, note, and stuffed animal that happened during that relationship. Sometimes girls got multiple boxes if they wrote a bunch of love notes or gave a bunch of gifts.

So last night, there I was reading a Batman Begins graphic novel while Sara worked over our friend like a mugger in a dark alley.
"Do you use this?"
"ummm..."
"Have you used this in the past year?"
"um...well"
"Then do you REALLY need this?"
"um...no..I guess.."
"Get rid of it."

At one point our friend was actually huddled under his desk. Sara had him under there with a dust buster vacuuming, but I knew deep down what was really going on.

To his credit, he took it well. He is striving for some crazy thing he calls a "minimalist" lifestyle This "minimalist" thing as best as I can tell means "to live in as small a place as allowed by the Geneva Convention, and local building codes." Whatever trips your trigger I say.

I think evolutionarily speaking males were designed to save for hard times while females were designed to be ready to bolt with the kids on a seconds notice quickly and cleanly.

So while traumatic by proxy, I got to see the whole majestic thing unfold in front of me and I now understand how it works. Sadly however, like destiny, I am unable to escape it.

I am man, I hoard, ergo ebay.