Okay.

Something happened last week that made me sit up and take notice. And when something actually penetrates my usual, comfortable little alcoholic haze, it’s got to be pretty amazing.

The chain of events that I’m referring to made me realize just how different the world is today from the one I grew up in, particularly when it comes to the societal roles of the sexes.

The good old days of Ward going off to work while June stays home, happily baking brownies and folding bed sheets all day long have vanished, if they ever really existed at all.

Ward would sit down at the dinner table every evening, still sporting his grey suit, white shirt and conservative tie, and he and the boys would be waited on hand and foot by June, wearing a demure yet comely dress, perhaps a string of faux pearls, high heels and perfectly applied make-up.

I always thought that, being male, I would have LOVED to live back in those days when women and men both knew their places, and men were always on top... literally and figuratively.

Nothing wrong with it.  That’s how Nature intended things to be, right? EVERYBODY was happy then, right?

Men had their riding lawn mowers and the 1960’s equivalent of a 56” diagonal, HD, flat screen TV to make them happy, and women were tickled pink with their new dishwashers and three-cycle washing machines! WHAT could be better?

Men were the kings, handing down edicts to the minions from the dining room table and wielding their mighty swords around in the bedroom with impunity. And women was just so happy and so secure knowing that their knights in shining armor would protect them and their young from the perils of the outside world.

That’s how it once was.  Right? 

That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

. . .

SO WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED????

Everything today is upside down. Women have the audacity today actually have opinions. They don’t listen like they used to. They don’t dress they way they used to. They don’t smile and bat their eyes and “oooh” and “aaaahh” like they used to.

And men have changed for the worse also.  No longer are we the ones in complete charge. No longer do we lord it over the others. No longer does our might make right.

These days, men attempt  to “be sensitive”. They try to “get in touch with their feminine side.”  (What the hell is that? Other than nipples, I don’t HAVE anything feminine about me…do I?)

But, in all seriousness, I changed with the times.  I have to admit that …yes. I have. But I’ve gone that route kicking and screaming.

It’s just not natural. It just doesn’t feel right…at first.

After a while, however, everything new and different becomes commonplace, right? I mean, remember when cell phones were brand new? Nobody ever thought they would catch on.  They were big and bulky and heavy. (I just saw the original Wall Street movie the other day.  It was released in the late nineties.  In it, the lead character, Gordon Gecko, spends a good deal of his time talking on the latest and greatest piece of technology – a cell phone that is about the size of two bricks glued together.)Today, we can’t live without them.

Remember when we all spent our Friday nights in the Blockbuster Video Store picking out video tape cassettes to watch? Now, everybody downloads movies on-line or gets their CD’s from NetFlix, and Blockbuster just filed for bankruptcy last week.

Every once in a while, something happens that smacks me in the face and says, “Look how things have really changed!!!!!”

Case in point:

A few weeks back, Mary Ellen and I bought a new dishwasher and kitchen stove.  We had them installed, and they are absolutely wonderful. (They replaced appliances that were at least 25 years old.)

Last week, we had some of our kids and their families over to house for a cookout. At one point during the event, I found myself in the kitchen with two of my big, burly and macho sons, (One is a ferrier, and the other is a carpenter.), and I was gleefully gushing about all of the bells and whistles that came with two new appliances while Mary Ellen was sitting out on the lawn drinking beer with my daughter and my daughters-in-law talking about “girl” things!

WTF?!

Halfway through the demonstration of the dishwasher “Power Rinse Cycle”, I happened to look out the front window and saw the women there sitting in lawn chairs, guzzling booze, and laughingly telling stories about their “significant others”, while the men were in the kitchen with me, salivating over the even heat of the new oven and fancy spoon holders in the new dishwasher!

It was like being hit by a runaway freight train! I was absolutely mortified! My first impulse was to turn off every electrical appliance in the room and shout at my sons, “GET OUT!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND START DOING PUSH-UPS ON THE FRONT WALK!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?”

Instead, I just stood up, said something like, “Well, that’s about it. The, uh, little woman really thinks these things are great. Makes her life a whole lot easier. Let’s head outside now. I wanna show you guys my new industrial strength power-washer and my new heavy-duty leaf blower. Who wants a shot and a beer?”

I didn’t have the heart or the guts to tell them that, between their mother and I, I’m the one who appreciates the dishwasher the most since I’m the one who usually does the dishes in the house.

Guess I should just get fitted for an apron and hair curlers right now, huh?

(*Sigh*)  I sometimes yearn for the good old days . . . that never really were!