DUFFER  ....... women equal change

by Ian Robinson June 2003

We all saw it at the Colonial. The End of Life as We Knew it. Mark this year carefully, gentlemen. It is the beginning of the end.

Most everybody pretended it was a good thing, the way the parents of sons who've come out of the closet pretend that it's a good thing, even though the moms are thinking, "I'll never have grandchildren!" and the fathers .... well, best not go there at all.

But they don't tell anybody about that, do they? They start out with the I'll - love - him - no-matter-what-he-does philosophy, which is dandy for a son who is serving three to five for robbing liquor stores, but seems a little harsh, given the current social climate, to apply to somebody whose only transgression, as it were, is to enjoy the music of Barbra Streisand and know how to pull an outfit together with just the right accessories. So the poor parents go all the way to I-Love-My-Son-Just-The-Way-He-Is.

And then they buy the T-shirts that read: I'm Proud of My Gay Son! and hit the good old pride parade and smile a lot as they wander down the boulevard, sandwiched between guys dressed like rollerblading nuns and a herd of leather clad biker lesbians, only if you look closely ...hey.

That's no smile. That's a wince. Watching Annika Sorenstam playing on the Professional Golfer's Association tour was just like being one of those poor parents. Only worse. We knew we shouldn't mind. That it was wrong to mind. That it was politically incorrect to mind. But we minded.

Maybe we redneck reactionaries will get used to it in time, the way we got used to fellas slow dancing together in public and tofu burgers, and women getting to vote and all. (Come to think of it, I haven't really accepted the latter but, hey. I'm pretty unreconstructed.) Anyway, the scope of the Annika Sorenstam disaster isn't immediately apparent because it was just one sort of broad-shouldered lady on the golf course. No big deal, right?

Wrongo. Because it's not just gonna be Annika now, is it? Because women are like ants or Italians. You never see just one now, do you? You see one Italian guy, you blink, the next thing you know there's a great bakery, hot, sultry-looking Mediterranean chicks sashaying down the street, a 12-team soccer league, old guys playing dominos on the front stoops and a new casino going up, funded by the Teamsters Union pension fund.

Annika was the first ant at the picnic. Now she's gonna go back to the LPGA anthill and tell all her friends about the great food. And they're gonna swarm. In and of itself, there's nothing wrong with that. But the women won't just turn up and play. They're gonna turn up ... and change stuff. Cause it's in their nature. You can't name a single thing men used to do by themselves that women invaded that stayed the same.

You no doubt staked out a room in your house when you first got married. Probably in the basement. It had a moose head on the wall and a Swedish Bikini Team poster and maybe a little shrine in the corner to Clint Eastwood. Biggest TV you could afford and an easy chair in front of it.

You could spill beer and not worry. And over time, SHE got involved, didn't she? Now you go into your old room and there is a throw rug and the TV's gone and there are nice loveseats and armchairs arranged in what she calls "conversational groupings." And if there's anything that screams WOMAN INVOLVED it's a conversational grouping. Cause guys don't converse. They watch stuff together. Sports. War movies. Cheerleading practice from the bushes next to the high school. CNN when there's a decent war on. Last thing we want to do is talk.

Remember your wardrobe? You had shirts and pants and stuff. Now you have .... wait for it .... outfits, don't you? You got crap that matches. Cause a woman got involved. She also threw out your varsity football jersey from Grade 12 the year you almost made it to the finals.

She threw out your favourite jeans cause of the little hole the size of a bowling ball in the crotch. Even your sweatpants match. She change you, too, didn't she? Remember how you'd get a little hammered and tell that really funny story about the time your buddy got really drunk and pooped his pants on his girlfriend's crotch?

You don't tell that story anymore, do you? Cause SHE made you stop. She cleaned you up just like she cleaned up the basement den. So it ain't just gonna be Annika. It's gonna be change upon change. Bad change. No more throwing your clubs into the water hazard when you're annoyed. No more dirty-talking, cigar smoking, crotch-scratching, fart-lighting, guy time. Nope.

No more Miller Time. Say hello to Stewart Time. And no, Stewart isn't a new beer company. It's a woman. And her first name is Martha. And she can kick our collective asses around the block if we so much as utter one peep of complaint.

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