Mortal Spin: Off Center: Modern Man

By BlackJack

This morning my wife left me. It's not permanent or anything. She just took the kid to her parents for the day, but anytime a woman leaves her husband at home alone through a mealtime things can turn ugly. Men who have been married for years and conditioned to acting like adults will revert to their bachelor ways in a matter of hours.

Lunchtime came and I found myself with the refrigerator door open staring at the contents waiting for something to jump out at me. Don’t get me wrong – our fridge is well stocked – it’s just that I couldn’t combine any of the contents in my head so that they formed a meal. I might as well have been trying to perform high-level trigonometry in my head. Nothing would compute.

I finally settled on making myself a sandwich, the good old American-man’s meal. I’m an advanced cook so I didn’t have to settle for peanut butter and jelly. I was able to combine some lunchmeat and cheese with mayonnaise to create my special JJ club sandwich. As usual, I put on too much mayonnaise and when I took the first bite it squirted all over my shirt so I took it off and sat down to watch some TV while I munched.

There I was, shirtless and spreading crumbs all over the couch, eating like a Neanderthal. I think that’s what separates modern men from their ancient ancestors – the influence of women. Take away the women in our life and we start the cycle of devolution in a matter of moments. We grunt, scavenge for food, and do away with hygiene so fast you’d think we’d passed through a time machine.

I’m pretty sure men never really evolved at all. Women did and they drug men along with them because the survival of the species required it. If women could have found a way to do without us I’m sure we wouldn’t have been missed for long. I think that’s why men love to use BBQ grills so much. I know if I could just build a fire right in my kitchen and cook my food on a spit I’d be just as happy.

I also think that’s why men like to go stag on hunting and fishing trips. It’s the only time we can go off into our natural environment and act like our primitive selves. Ask any man who hunts on a regular basis what his favorite time of year is and he’ll say when he gets to go on his annual week in the woods. There’s nobody around telling him to use silverware or to change his underwear or to stop scratching himself in front of everybody. In fact most of these activities are encouraged.

I have a theory that if all the women disappeared, within 2 weeks all the men would have banded together into tribes, burned the cities to the ground and gone off to the wild parts of the world and started living like cave men. I’m willing to bet that not one of them would miss his cell phone for a minute if he could belch and grunt the day away.

You can do a clinical test of my theory at home if you’d like. Ladies – tell your husband you’ve made plans for the weekend and you’ll be gone one night. Tell him you’re going shopping at a mall somewhere so you’ll be sure that he won’t want to go along. Set-up a video camera in a hidden location in the living room and be sure not to prepare any meals before you leave. When you return and watch the tape you’ll find your significant other in his feral state, drinking milk from the carton, eating cold soup without a spoon and he’ll most likely be in his underwear – if you’re lucky.

So, although I know my true self and know that a normal household is not my natural environment, I’m happy that the women decided to keep us around. Maybe the advances they’ve made in gene research will allow us to uncover the trigger to begin men’s evolutionary cycle and we’ll catch up someday. But, in reality, I imagine a thousand years from now men will still long to run off in groups, perhaps to a hunting camp on a distant planet, and spend the weekend belching and scratching themselves. They'll be happy and their women will be annoyed and everything will be normal.