I've been thinking a lot about being a woman recently.
And for the record: No, I am not myself a woman. This fact makes women all the less understandable. Other men have experienced this same lack of ability to grasp woman-ness, leading to bad relationships and Mel Gibson's "What Women Want."
But perhaps what perplexes hetero males more than anything in the world (and I include in this sweeping generalization concepts like organic chemistry) is the period. As Mr. Garrison of "South Park" fame so eloquently put it, "I don't trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die." I share this suspicion.
But seriously, what was God thinking when periods came up?
God: Okay, now we have to make women. First off, we'll commodify them as sexual objects.
God's secretary: (writing on clipboard) Check.
God: And then we'll force them into traditional roles for thousands of years.
God's secretary: Okay.
God: Make them deal with childbirth, rape, domestic violence and a glass ceiling.
God's secretary: Right.
God: Oh, and make them bleed every month, requiring the use of complex telescoping devices. Throw in something like cramps that make them hate everybody, too.
God's secretary: Isn't that a bit much?
God: Perhaps, but imagine the whimsy.
I mean, isn't there something cosmically unjust about periods? What's the upside of being a woman? Having to work twice as hard to get the same amount of respect as men? Woohoo, sign me up for that.
But throughout time, one thing (and one thing alone) has brought women and men together: beer. And because of exhaustive Anheuser-Busch research that is sure to have effects in countries throughout the world, beer has entered its next stage of evolution. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... caffeinated beer. Finally, an alcohol that dehydrates even more! With the addition of caffeine, I can get in that extra hour of studying as I drink myself to oblivion. Thanks, Anheuser-Busch! Even better, the brew-master (one imagines him cackling over a bubbling cauldron) who created this drink said that "it finishes with what we're calling the wow factor."
Wow.
You heard it here first, readers. The wow factor. According to Master Davis, "People who drink it, their eyes light up and they say 'Wow!,' among other things." One can only surmise what those "other things" are. Like "Wow, I'm glad this was a gift" or "Wow, you're not my friend anymore."
Perhaps U.S. research and development personnel are imbibing some of these wow-ifying alcoholic beverages. An NGO recently shed light on some ideas the Air Force was throwing around during the '90s, including a "recommendation to expose enemy troops to powerful aphrodisiacs in order to distract them into lustful hookups with each other (irrespective of gender)." I'm sure someone in the Air Force is kicking themselves right now. "We could've won Vietnam with just a little more Viagra!" Other possibilities included "overrunning enemy positions with rats or wasps ... and creating waves of fecal gas." Now, maybe I'm alone on this, but I think there's something just a tad silly about unleashing Biblical on our enemies, foreign and domestic. It makes me feel somewhat embarrassed to live in a country where such "National Lampoon"-like strategy is considered. But I'll be okay.
I mean, at least I'm not a woman.
John Brougher '06 is a tad silly.
