Jane says…

At least eleven two times a day, I get an email forwarded by someone’s cousin to someone’s sister to someone’s coworker to everybody on someone else’s email list and then to my mother. Who then forwards said email to me. Inevitably, it’s something like this:

or these:

How are husbands like lawn mowers?
They’re hard to get started, they emit noxious odors, and half the time they don’t work.

What do men and pantyhose have in common?
They either cling, run, or don’t fit right in the crotch!

How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb?
One-He just holds it up there and waits for the world to revolve around him.

How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Three. One to screw in the bulb, and two to listen to him brag about the screwing part.

My very formal research which included asking a few guys at lunch what kinds of jokes they send each other indicates that men do not get the same volume of “wife” jokes as women do about husbands.

Most jokes at wives’ expense go something like this:

“Whenever I go home after we’ve been out drinking, I turn the headlights off before I get to the driveway. I shut off the engine and coast into the garage. I take my shoes off before I go into the house, I sneak up the stairs, I get undressed in the bathroom. I ease into bed and my wife STILL wakes up and yells at me for staying out so late!”

His buddy looks at him and says, “Well, you’re obviously taking the wrong approach. I screech into the driveway, slam the door, storm up the steps, throw my shoes into the closet, jump into bed, rub my hands on my wife’s ass and say, ‘How about a blowjob?’ … and she’s always sound asleep.”

Or this:

“My husband is a fill-in-the-blank” jokes are way more socially acceptable than “my wife is a fill-in-the-blank” jokes. I’m not saying that this is necessarily how it should be, I’m just saying this is how it is. And why is it? Why is it OK to bash the husbands, but not so cool to bash the wives?

1) The content of the jokes is key. In general, jokes about wives are gripes about sex lives or nagging. The recurring “sex life” joke theme is that men aren’t getting it enough. Why is this not OK? We only need to look at the jokes women make about sex for our answer: you are lazy, hairy, beery, and we are tired of cleaning up after you so we’d rather just sleep.

2) Other types of jokes are about nagging wives. Jokes about nagging wives are stupid. Like the sex jokes, they only point back to your own shortcomings. Life imitates art, right? Are you surprised we nag? If you would do the shit that you are supposed to do, that you say you’re going to do, that we need you to do then we won’t nag. Furthermore, when you actually do all that stuff – try to do it the way we said to. Why do we get to say you should do things? Because women run the household. We keep the big calendar and message board in our heads. You don’t. This is why you call us to ask where the Advil is while we’re out enjoying our first family-free night out with the girls in months or you have to check in with us while we’re driving home from the grocery store because you have to know immediately how much the 7 year old weighs because some form needs the info. It’s not that you aren’t necessary and important, it’s that you aren’t as necessary and important as we are.

3) It’s OK to husband bash because we need the solidarity and the validation. Plus we need the laughs. Because some days, it comes down to two choices: laugh or pack a bag.

…but Dan thinks…

You know, I kinda get the need for the husband jokes. It’s like why everyone hates the United States. We own everything. We run everything. We know how everything works. We know how to fix everything.

And we can pee standing up. It’s natural to be jealous.

But I’m pretty sure that holding the title “cruise director” does not make women queens of all they survey.

The household you run? You’re welcome for providing that for you. The long hours we spent separating clients from their money, constructing their constructions, meeting with fart-breathing bosses and filling out TPS reports? Because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and that it wasn’t every bit as grueling as plopping the children in front of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while you run down the Energizers on your favorite toy. Oh, right. That actually ISN’T that grueling, is it.

You know what Rachel Rae does to prevent every calorie from going to her ass because you have the time. Time to watch television. Time to read gossip blogs. Hell, time to write your own damn blogs.

We’re just too busy to spend all our free time bitching to any other man that’ll listen about how unfair life is.

And the reason we can’t find the Advil? You keep fucking moving it. I get wanting to feel like you control your surroundings, but do you have to do it by constantly shuffling everything around in the house? The answer to “Where’s the Advil” should NOT be “Billy had soccer that one time and he hurt his knee and so we were sitting on the floor and I gave him the Advil while I held ice on his knee and then Miranda came in and distracted me and I needed to put away the Advil so it was out of reach of the kids and so I think I put it with the spices so check there.”

Um, no. The answer should be “It’s in the medicine drawer, where it always is.”

Ok, now I feel the need to wipe away the piggish veneer and be serious for a minute. In general I don’t think men mind that much that women get together and privately dish dirt on their spouses. Some men dish, too. But the thing that I feel is wholly unacceptable? Airing dirty laundry to the world. Like on a blog. I’m not going to name names here, only because Jane has been screaming and pleading that I don’t, for fear that it’ll mean disaster for this blog. But there are women with high profile blogs who write really insulting things about their husbands and family on a regular basis. Husband jokes, but in real life.

Maybe it’s a lack of maturity that makes these women do this. Or maybe it’s a lack of intelligence or foresight. Or lack of respect.

But one of the first rules you ever learn about interpersonal relations, even as a child, is that if you have an issue with someone, you take it up with that person, not everyone EXCEPT that person. Maybe those women who blog nasty on their husbands are really, deep down, unhappy and hoping for a divorce and this is how they subconsciously make that happen. Or maybe they have mice for men (at which point those men should get together for some chest-bumping bro-lidarity, or go buy a t-shirt that says “she may be the woman, but I’m the pussy”). Whatever the reason, it’s pretty much indefensible, and all the harm that gets rained down on that relationship because of that behavior is justified.

Husband jokes? Fine in moderation. Wife jokes? Assume the position more often and they’ll go away.

And? We help out quite a bit around the house. We just don’t fly a biplane dragging a message each time we empty the trash.

Dan says…

Also soon to be found at a military BX near you: Special K, glow sticks and roofies. And a used double-turntable and a stack of trance music.

According to senior CNN reporter Mike Mount, the Plan B (levonorgestrel), morning after pill will become available worldwide in every military medical facility. Conveniently, it’ll be disguised as a 20-pack of mints.

IMR Coordinator Dick Aplenty says “this decision will make it way easier to keep our personnel on the battlefield mollified and fighting. We just pump ‘em full of Prozac and Special K, stuff their pockets full of birth control and bullets, then send them on their way.”

Coordinator Aplenty continued “…and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we’ve never had a fighting force this loose before. Morale’s at an all-time high.”

Jane and I actually talked about this topic by phone about a week ago, and it was fortunate it was by phone, otherwise this post would have been about hospital copays, insurance deductibles and unnecessary rectal exams.

My primary argument remains now what it was then: This. Is. The. Military. It’s not Wal*Mart, Good Vibrations and Johnny the Dealer rolled up into one. It’s the place where we give people guns and instruct them to kill other people. Or protect other people with their guns. All while not getting their shit blown up. Should the military really be stripping them naked and shoving their uglies together in the middle of all that gunplay?

…but Jane thinks…

Dan, choose 1 of the following to describe yourself: a) out of touch b) a repressed Midwesterner laden with Catholic guilt or c) someone practicing Socratic irony – a little too convincingly. I’m praying it’s C.

You are being willfully naïve if you think that the way to prepare or support a military during a time of war is to dump them in some godforsaken desert for YEARS at a time with nothing other than cold steel , a scratchy woolen blanket, and some MREs. I cannot believe that I am in the position here of the Patriot, while you are…I don’t even know what…proposing that we deny fighting men and women the same basic rights that other consenting adults have?

It doesn’t seem as if your objection here is to the morality (don’t even start with me, people, it’s completely none of anybody else’s business) of the morning-after pill, but rather the notion that the military should be acknowledging and responding to the simple fact that soldiers are going to have sex – should the lucky moment strike. Why is that wrong? They aren’t robots – although, there’s an idea – they are human beings, with physical and emotional desires, probably more in need of human contact and comfort than those of us here safe at home stateside. Should they not be able to buy tampons or Diet Pepsi? Those things aren’t necessary to blowing the enemy whoever the hell that is these days sky high. How about pillows? Nobody needs a pillow. Sure it’s NICE to have a pillow, but if you’re really tired, and I’ll bet those soldiers are, they’ll sleep without one. Playstation and Xbox, heck, television, computers, cds, ipods. Those things don’t have much to do with their mission, do they?

Or maybe your point is that we and by we, I mean you and Goody Brown from the old settlement in Jamestown, shouldn’t be facilitating sexual relationships at all unless they occur between married people at home in their own bed. And somehow NOT providing birth control is going to keep unmarried adults from having sex. In a war zone. When they are scared and lonely. And bored. And facing death on a daily basis. Right…that’s about as likely as turning up those missing WMDs and yellow cake uranium.

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Dan says…

What are you doing?

I’m trying to see if there’s some way we can get on Badger Care.

Why? We already have insurance.

Because remember how we opted out of maternity coverage after we had our son?

Ye-

Because when did I start my last period?

I thin-

Because remember the crazy stuff you’ve been pulling the last few weeks?

Oh……..Shit. Really?

Yes, really.

Wait a minute……………… Really?

(high-intensity, blue laser cannons turning toward me) Really.

Oh. Shit.

Annnnnd scene.

__________________________________________________________

I’m 41. Too old to be making another run at father of a newborn. Hello? Have you seen the grey hair?

Sure, Brad Pitt’s 46 and regularly soaking Angelina Jolie’s eggs in baby batter, but Brad’s financially liquid. Comparatively, I’m a financial dribbler. And, hello again? Have you seen Brad’s abs? The man’s a physical specimen. I just watched Fight Club yesterday, for the 32nd time. Even I wanna lick his abs.

Me? I’m more of a laboratory specimen. And my abs would be better served as chops with a side of applesauce. Brad’s gonna live to 100. I can count to 100.

And apparently in my old age and state of medicinal use, I can’t be trusted to make that all-important time out to gear up, to ensure I’m not spending the next two years changing diapers. Or that same amount of time paying for medical bills.

So we’re thinking about taking that decision out of my hands forever, and putting it into the skilled and hopefully warm and delicate hands of one Dr. Moard.

When I called to make the consultation appointment (where I hear they make you watch a video, presumably of post-coital men giving a great big thumbs-up to having had their nads sliced open), I was all bravado. But as the conversation wore on, I found myself shriveling into my chair and instinctively putting a hand over my crotch. Y’know, just in case the nurse accidentally tries to give me a vasectomy right there, over the phone.

Am I going to be less of a man if I know I’m shooting blanks?

What about all the stories I found on the web of botched snip jobs where the guy ended up having to have his balls cut clean off? Speaking of Fight Club, hello, Robert Paulson!

Can I REALLY get to a point where I volunteer to let a strange man carve his initials on my genitals? And then have my junk look like this image I found on Wikipedia?

My magic 8-ball says “Ask Again Later.”

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…but Jane thinks…

Doctor I’d like a vasectomy
First you should talk to your family
I did just today
What did they say
They are in favor fifteen to three

My eggs are 42 years old. Older, actually, because I’m pretty sure those little babypods start to grow in utero. Not my utero. Well, IN my utero while I was in utero.

I’m confused now.

Let’s start again.

I’m too old to have any more babies. That, and I can barely handle the ones I have and they’re not even babies anymore. Excuse me while I lock myself in the bathroom and sob for an hour. I get emotional about the no baby thing sometimes. Even though, truth be told, I wasn’t that great with babies. Not that I endangered them or hated them or dressed them up in weird clothes and took pictures of them for my own amusement or shoved beans up their noses, I just wasn’t a very calm and together mother of babies. She says. In the understatement of the decade.

My youngest baby child is six. After she was born, we (husband and me, that is) decided that we were done. Boy. Girl. Done. Two kids. Done. I should probably mention at this point that our discussion of the subject occurred shortly after the one in which my obstetrician told me that with my history of high risk pregnancies that I’d probably just explode upon conception rather than have to suffer through the trials and tribulations of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes if I were ever to get knocked up again. Which, actually, might be preferable to both, but never mind. Exploding Mommy = Bad Plan.

The thing is, I tried to get pregnant twice. And I got pregnant twice. In fact, the second time, we’d just begun talking about trying to get pregnant again. I think my husband sneezed near me when I was in the shower because I’m sure there was no scheduled or conscientious effort on either of our parts and then I remember that we both got the flu – the stomach flu – so there was no, er, effort made shortly after this initial “Should we? Shouldn’t we?” conversation. In other words, in the past, it’s not been hard for us to conceive.

I’ve also never been pregnant other than those two, intentional (mostly) pregnancies. This makes me very lucky, I think. Not that I’m a huge tramp and spent most of the 80’s and 90’s whoring it up all over town or anything, but, you know, statistically, shit happens. But not to me. And for this I am grateful. But getting NOT pregnant took some effort on my part (again, I feel I should reiterate that I am not a tramp. I didn’t get married until I was 32, OK? What did you expect? Mom, Dad. Don’t read this anymore. I probably should have mentioned that earlier.). Birth control pills are awful. Side effects, both long term and short are only the tip of the iceberg. The patch? Still birth control pills, just not in pill form, and in my house the patch was called “The Bitch Patch” because within 20 minutes of sticking that little square of hormone-infused plastic to my ass I was transformed into Hormona, The Evil Queen of the Planet Dysmennhorrea. Diaphragm. Gross. Bladder infections. Also. Gross. On and on. I’m not telling anybody anything they don’t already know.

About a month and a half ago, I thought I was pregnant. It was a very tense two weeks at my house while I mentally checked and rechecked symptoms and then peed on many a stick. Ultimately, not pregnant.* Did I mention that it was a very tense two weeks at my house? I miss being pregnant, I miss breastfeeding, I miss having tiny, sweet smelling cuddly warm babies. What I don’t miss is daycare bills, bottles, formula, baby food, diapers, crying, teething, weird rashes, that thing you have to use to suck out snot when the kid has a cold, weekly (it seems) trips to the pediatrician, not sleeping, getting fat(ter), not spending time with the other people in my house. Also, I don’t miss diabetes and 20 pounds of water weight and the risk of stroke caused by high blood pressure. What I would miss? My car – because I’d need a minivan and then I’d have to kill myself. Also, my house. Because there ain’t no room at that inn for another person.

When men are through breeding, they should all get vasectomies. It’s a simple, out-patient procedure that results in minor discomfort – and they send you home with pills, so hello? Win, win as far as I’m concerned. The only preparation or “inconveniences” after the surgery is a little swelling – great opportunity for humor here, and the need to collect sperm samples before and after. That’s right. You, the magazines, a sterilized cup. My heart breaks for you.

The arguments for why men should get vasectomies instead of women getting tubal ligation or continuing to be responsible for birth control are so frequently trotted out in this debate that they are clichéd at this point. I don’t care.

I had two c-sections. Isn’t that enough mucking about with my innards? You think a little snip snip of the vas deferens makes your knees tremble, boys? My UTERUS WAS PLACED ON MY STOMACH WHILE THEY STITCHED IT BACK UP. At the end of my second c-section, I asked the doctor why it smelled like someone was smoking in the OR. He said, “It’s you. I’m cauterizing your insides.”

It’s cool. I’ll wait. Get a drink of water and put your head between your knees. The feeling will pass.

The arguments against vasectomies are that it hurts, it’s gross, and men are afraid. Ever seen one of these?

That’s an amnihook. Used to break a woman’s (mine) water during induced or slow labor.

And this?

That’s my obstetrician’s actual hand. Used to do a lovely procedure called “stripping the membrane” to speed labor along.

The vasectomy procedure, called, unbelievably, Riddle’s Fiddle, consists of two tiny incisions into numbed skin (topical anesthesia before the injection, you big wimps), two snips, and a few stiches. Which dissolve. Then you’re home, on Percodan, with a bag of frozen peas between your legs while you lie on the couch and demand beverages and sympathy. Other than a little private Dad time in the bathroom with the periodical of your choice and some hospital-approved Tupperware, you’re done.

The only real, scientifically proven, negative consequence or side effect of a vasectomy is that it is permanent. Reversing a vasectomy is often costly, challenging, and ineffective. Although I don’t see why this is a negative. That’s the whole damn point, isn’t it? No more babies? And not just no more babies with me, no more babies with anybody. The hell if I’m going to pick up your socks and raise two of your hellion offspring just so you can turn around and decide that you’ve had enough of my bitchy screeds and irrational behavior (till death do you part, buddy) and trade me in for a new model. A new model who wants babies. Babies who will make my own babies crazy because that’s what daddy’s new babies do. And I don’t have the time or energy for some other chick’s babies making my babies crazy. So no. No more babies. **

Get ‘er done. Anymore babies come in this house, mama’s out.

* If we had been pregnant, I’d totally have named that kid Daisy, as in “Oopsy Daisy.”

**Not that he’d ever leave me. Of course. I’m a catch. A bitchy, irrational catch. Who isn’t having any more babies.