There are hand prints on the carpet right in front of my big comfortable black leather pappa chair again tonight. My Lady Wonder Wench and I both like to walk around barefoot, so we have a nice soft, blue carpet in our living room. And that’s where I do my push ups…which I haven’t been doing for a while…but I did today …because my issue of Men’s Health magzine arrived…and that’s like my pushup conscience.
The cover of the magazine features one of those young guys who forgot to shave for a couple of days before the photo shoot. He looks like he probably eats alphabet soup and spits out dirty words. More than likely he holds several scoring records, and not all of them are in sports. For some reason, young…pre Louie-Louie Generation women seem to like that. He probably has women he doesn’t even know running around his house, doing floor exercises in their high spike heels, while wearing sweat pants from Victoria’s Secret…and arguing with each other over who gets to give him a back rub with her carefully manicured nine inch fingernails when he gets home.
They have all kinds of really weird exercises in that magazine which I never do. Things like a split stance cable chop, the Romnanian dead lift, and the ever popular band-resisted jack knife. I just huff and puff with some pushups on my carpet, and ride my bike around the neighborhood. It’s not much, but I’ve been doing that for years, and so far it has kept my body from attacking me. And more importantly, I haven’t had any complaints about my physical abilities from my Lady Wonder Wench.
But lately, I’ve been finding excuses to put off the huffing and puffing. And as a consequence, every time I stand up now, my body has been making sounds a little like the ones a coffee maker…makes…when it’s making coffee. And I don’t want to get to the point where my bucket gets too big for the bucket seats in my car. So…the handprints are back in the carpet again today.
Sounds like I’m jealous of Mr. Perfect Pecs on the magazine cover doesn’t it. Well there’s no doubt that I’d trade the body I presently live in for for the one I had when I was 21. My body was strong like bull. But looking back on it, my thought process was a little like a bull’s too. I like my head better now, even if the stuff under it tends to slip and slide around more than it should.
Did you ever think how the things we had and the things we did…shaped who we are today? They’re different from what Mr. Pecks and his girls have now. We had ice pops with 2 sticks so you could break them apart and give one to your friend. It’s an easy way to learn that sharing some of your stuff is worth it because it feels good. Catching lightning bugs in a jar taught us how quickly a life that burns so bright in the evening can change the next morning.
Christmas morning was proof that you never know when something wonderful that you didn’t expect is going to happen to you…poof…just like that. Climbing high up in trees let us look at things the way birds do. So it really does make sense that other people can look at exactly the same thing you’re looking at, and see something entirely different. Laughing so hard your stomach hurt is something we don’t do nearly enough these days. Keeping your eyes open just a little during your first kiss to see if she was keeping her eyes open a little too was sometimes a fast lesson in how good it is to laugh with somebody you love. And you’re not supposed to use eny meeny miney mo to make decisions either. And being picked last for a team was one way to learn that disappointments won’t kill you.
I don’t know if the guy on the cover of the magazine learned these things or not. I hope so. But I have my doubts. And I wonder if he’s had the time, or if he’s cared enough to learn that when his girl says nothing’s wrong, something is wrong. But when she says something, “isn’t funny”, he better not laugh. I don’t know. That takes time.
And I don’t know if the ladies in the Victoria’s Secret sweat pants care about learning how guys are. How we always have to make believe we know what we’re doing all the time…and we don’t need any help. We don’t need any directions, except maybe from the gps, which is ok, because that’s a machine not a person. We have to believe we can fix everything. Maybe not right away…but eventually. And we must never go to a therapist or a doctor unless it can be clinically proven that we have been dead for at least a month. “No sense going to the hospital honey, it doesn’t seem like I’m in a coma.”
Louie-Louie generation men and women have been around long enough…and most of us care enough…to put these things we’ve learned into the way we treat each other. Usually. Not always. Because we know Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie generation is right when he says, “Everything never always goes right.”
Dick’s Details quiz…all answers are in the current podcast.
1- Why do some people say James Bond is for the birds ?
2- What do politicians do much more than the average American?
3- What did Neanerthal women say their men used for thinking ?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
Way too many people think that if a Louie-Louie Generation guy winks at a woman, he may not be able to get his eye open again. The fact is that if a Louie-Louie Generation guy puts the handprints on the carpet, rides his bike, and otherwise takes care of himself, he sometimes has problems of a very different kind. There’s a story about that in the Night Connections personal audio cd. It’s called…a Helpless Lover.
I sometimes wonder if women understand the terrible power of a single tear. Not some crying fit. Just one…single…tear. I think the best women do. If you like the story you can just keep this podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy just go to the home page and download it from the Night Connections icon.
Some things just take time. Maybe the magazine guy will take the time…maybe he won’t. I hope he does. It takes time for a guy to meet one unforgettable woman…once. And then never see her again…except every time he closes his eyes. It takes time for a guy to get in the kind of trouble that could cost his life…and prove to himself he can handle it. It takes time to collect the kind of memories that can make it ok that some of his dreams will probably never come true.
I’m really not jealous of the guy on the cover of the magazine… with all those girls he’s never had time to meet running around in his house… wearing their Victoria’s Secret sweat pants as they’re doing their floor exercises wearing high spike heels, and waiting to pounce on him when he gets home from doing all those weird exercises at the gym.
There’s a lady waiting for me too. I call her my Lady Wonder Wench. And her foot exactly fits the footprints on our nice soft blue carpet. It’s like Cinderella’s glass slipper. We’ve been walking barefoot together on our soft blue carpet for a long, long time. Given a choice, I will take a woman in bare feet over one in high spike heels every day. And every night. That’s why I put those handprints there in our carpet again today.