I was hanging out at home one morning with nothing in particular to do; I decided to knock the dust from my fishing gear and head to my favorite semi-secret fishing spot. I texted my buddy Joe to see if he'd like to come along; the conversation went something like this:
ME: Going fishing. Want to come?
JOE: I'm in. What time?
ME: Pick you up in 15.
JOE: Sweet. :-)
ME: WTF!? Is that a smiley face?
JOE: Was an accident.
ME: (Disgusted silence)
JOE: Seriously.
When I think of a couple of guys heading out on a fishing trip, I think of layered flannel shirts, logging boots, and a long, treacherous hike through mountains inhabited only by rattlesnakes and bears. Knowing there's no guarantee of safe return, the crafty woodsmen bring along emergency supplies like dehydrated beef, tourniquets, and flare guns, their creels chock-full of rudimentary cooking utensils in case they're forced to spend the night in a shelter carved out of a snow drift and eat the flesh of wild game or river trout landed with hand-crafted fishing rods and a crude net fashioned from the branches of a very young oak.
Joe and I pulled into the parking lot of the National Prairie Preserve, locked the Subaru, and prepared to do battle with leviathanic creatures of the deep. We carried our Wal-Mart fishing poles and a few brightly-colored lures down the well-worn path to the overstocked pond and went head to head with all that mother nature had to offer. After winching several 8-ouncers from the murky depths, we decided to take a break. I handed my good buddy Joe a cold beer and asked: "So what's with the smiley face?"
Thus started the conversation that continues here. We spent the remainder of the afternoon basking in the elemental glory of a warm summer day wondering what's happened to men. "Men just aren't as manly as they used to be" was the tired refrain as we tried to trace the origins of what our good buddy Arlan calls demanification. We had no trouble identifying countless examples, but repeatedly got stuck when we tried to pinpoint the reason for our collective decline.
Here, friends, is your opportunity to join the conversation . . . the movement . . . the revolution, as a couple of guys set off in search of Man Skills.
ME: Going fishing. Want to come?
JOE: I'm in. What time?
ME: Pick you up in 15.
JOE: Sweet. :-)
ME: WTF!? Is that a smiley face?
JOE: Was an accident.
ME: (Disgusted silence)
JOE: Seriously.
When I think of a couple of guys heading out on a fishing trip, I think of layered flannel shirts, logging boots, and a long, treacherous hike through mountains inhabited only by rattlesnakes and bears. Knowing there's no guarantee of safe return, the crafty woodsmen bring along emergency supplies like dehydrated beef, tourniquets, and flare guns, their creels chock-full of rudimentary cooking utensils in case they're forced to spend the night in a shelter carved out of a snow drift and eat the flesh of wild game or river trout landed with hand-crafted fishing rods and a crude net fashioned from the branches of a very young oak.
* * *
Joe and I pulled into the parking lot of the National Prairie Preserve, locked the Subaru, and prepared to do battle with leviathanic creatures of the deep. We carried our Wal-Mart fishing poles and a few brightly-colored lures down the well-worn path to the overstocked pond and went head to head with all that mother nature had to offer. After winching several 8-ouncers from the murky depths, we decided to take a break. I handed my good buddy Joe a cold beer and asked: "So what's with the smiley face?"
Thus started the conversation that continues here. We spent the remainder of the afternoon basking in the elemental glory of a warm summer day wondering what's happened to men. "Men just aren't as manly as they used to be" was the tired refrain as we tried to trace the origins of what our good buddy Arlan calls demanification. We had no trouble identifying countless examples, but repeatedly got stuck when we tried to pinpoint the reason for our collective decline.
Here, friends, is your opportunity to join the conversation . . . the movement . . . the revolution, as a couple of guys set off in search of Man Skills.
Posts
2 comments:
As all good men strive to know the true meanings of things (ex: How does beer get made?, Is that mold on the bread really just pennicillin? etc) I thought it would be pertinent to let all of you know the true origin of the word "demanualization". Yes, I am claiming it as my word.
It was late in the evening one night sitting in the scalding hot, hot tub. Allegedly, there were a few beers involved. As I sat there with my awesome girlfriend (we are told over and over behind every good man is a good woman) discussing the intricacies of our relationship it suddenly dawned on me, "I'm not as much of a man as I used to be" Dont get me wrong, I can do all of the "manly" things that a guy needs to be able to do. You know open jars, change the filter furnace etc. No, what made me realize it suddenly was that we were having a discussion about the number of shoes in the closet. No, this was not your typical woman bashing conversation about the number of shoes that SHE has, nope this was about the number of shoes that I have. You see, at that moment I owned more pairs of shoes than I had owned in my ENTIRE life. Back in the good ol' man days I had basically 3 pairs of shoes. The tennis shoe, the softball shoe (which doubled as the golf shoe) and the simple black dress shoe that I had splurged on from Burlington Coat Factory. Yep those were the man days! Now, I can't even believe I'm going to type this, I have 13 pairs of shoes, 13. 13! (I realize that a number is not a sentence but honestly does anything more need to be said for that to be a sentence?) Did I even want 13 pairs of shoes? I'm saying "No", but I was told that I needed 13 pairs of shoes. So anyways there I was with wrinkled body parts, and I realized that I needed a word to describe the less of a man feeling that I was having at that moment. Hence, I had the realization that I had been demanned. After discussing this more(I'm told I beat it into the ground that night), I truly had realized that I had been demanned. Hence, the words demanned and realization put together became demanualization. Yes, I understand you Webster buffs that demanualization is not a word, so it doesn't have a definition. However, as a man, does it really need to be defined? Or do you just "know" what it means? I'm guessing you just "know".
By the way, I have already petitioned Webster to add my word to his dictionary. I just hope someone can come up with a good definition, so we all can understand it!
Well, said, Arlan. I think you should write the official definition of demanualization and all its derivatives, i.e. demanify, manicly, etc.
We could keep a running list of manly words and their new definitions (if a guy has a sudden and unexpected outpouring of great and manly ideas could one say he is manstruating?) in a compendium of sorts . . . perhaps a manual. --Scott
Post a Comment