By Tony Deyal
A female friend wished me a “Happy International Men’s Day” but not the men. As we say in Trinidad and a few other places in the region, some men “day”, others “day, day”, and there are even a few who “day, day, day.” “Worse, many aren’t “day” or “there” when you need them most, and they make jokes about serious things and situations. Women are the toughest in town, especially when the subject and sole topic is men. In fact, one lady asked, “Why don’t men often show their true feelings?” I suggested they prefer free things than “feelings”, but she said, “You like too much jokes. This is serious business.
Men don’t show their true feelings because they don’t have any!” Even a friend from the city joined in an wanted to know, “Why are men like commercials.” He didn’t wait for me to think of a response and shouted on the phone, “You can’t believe a word they say.” Even my cousin in Canada came up with, “Tony, what do men and women have in common?” I responded with, “Ha! Ha! Ha!” She grinned: “You too full of sex talk. This has nothing to do with that. What we and men have in common is that we both distrust men! Ask my husband, John.”
Immediately, John jumped into the action: “Ask her what’s a man’s idea of safe sex?” She “steups” with all her teeth. John laughed and told us, “A padded headboard.” Another man came with, “Tony boy, we in trouble. I read that there are two times in our lives when mean never understand women, before they’re married, and after.” However, a little boy was smart enough to ask his father, “Daddy, why is men’s day not as popular as Women’s Day?” The smart daddy looked at his son and boasted, “Son, that is because we cannot celebrate a man’s achievements in a single day.” Then he added, “But keep that between us and never tell your mother what I say, you hear!”
Unfortunately, my wife heard something that was even more pressure for me. She called and asked: “Did you know that today is World Toilet Day?” I didn’t reply with any four-letter word starting with “S” but responded nicely, “I didn’t know that.” She said: “I just found out and they are right to make it the same day as the Men’s ‘special’ day. I feel it is men with their rum and money-wasting that cause 3.5 billion people still living without real sanitation.” She didn’t stop there, “The reason we get infected and sometimes badly hurt is because of you men who always leave the toilet seat up secretly because you want us to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and fall in.” Poor me! When I was growing up in the country, not too many people had a toilet.
In fact, we had a “Toilit.” That was because our “privy” was very far behind the house, in fact by the fence, and it was very dark. If my father was home, I took his bicycle light without his knowing or, when he remained in the shop drinking, I had to take a candle and was scared because the darkness looked even worse then, so I tried to grab the gaslight. However, if my father came home and caught me with it, there were threats and the occasional “tap.”
Using the facility had its own problems and jokes like, “What’s worse that a cold toilet seat?” A warm one. Or the sign in a male toilet, “Dear Mister Gentleman! Don’t flatter yourself, step closer, much closer.” There was the question, “What do they call an army soldier living on a toilet?” A loo-tenant. But despite the jokes, I found out that success is like male toilet paper. It only seems important when you don’t have it. Even Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, got into the act. Before he went into the toilet business, he already had some good stuff like, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” This was most likely because they were in the washroom at the time. Then there was, “Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
Again, as one of my kids in the school I taught reading suggested, “Mr D, he better carry some paper with him yes. A big shot man like that can’t just go down in the road and let it out.” However, Confucius supposedly said, “Man who stand on toilet, high on pot!” I wanted to stop toiling with the Brit man who said, “I ran out of toilet paper, so I had to start using old newspapers. The Times are tough.” Bit not as touch as the police force, “Breaking News: There was a break-in at the police station today and the toilet was stolen. The police have nothing to go on.”
And I had nothing more to say, especially given that men are at the top of the heap, or say they think. Right now, we’re like a woman pursued by two men. One was a baker, and one was a poet. She had to make up her mind for batter, or worse. In my thinking about men and a “man day”, the first issue is what is described as “Captivating a Man, Making Him Unforgettable”. Vanessa Van Edwards of “Science-People” provides “120 Compliments For Men That’ll Make Him Feel Loved.” That is unless his wife finds out. While research suggests that when someone feels appreciated by their partner, the relationship will likely be healthier and last longer, that is not how wives and lovers see it.
Can you imagine them saying or hearing some other woman telling the man: “It never ceases to amaze me how you understand ideas so thoroughly and easefully;” – “I admire the way you look at the world. Your perspective is always so insightful and thought-provoking;” or “Our conversations about life and philosophy always leave me thinking deeper. You have such a profound understanding of complex ideas.”
Worse, there are “15 Compliments Men Can’t Resist” that men love. A favourite one is, “Your smile is the most welcoming thing I’ve ever seen. It brightens my world.” While the man might say, “Darling, you haven’t seen anything yet”, the wives and girlfriends will not take it lying down. Worse for them is when they hear a woman tell their man, “You are so determined and motivated to make something of your life and I know nothing will stand in your way”, or “I love how you make me feel each time we are together. I feel like the most fortunate woman in the world” (unless the wife catches up with either or both of them), and “There’s something about you that makes me want to grab you and kiss you. You’re so charming!” That is when the damning and harming start!
*Tony Deyal was glad that he is out of the loop, and nobody asks his wife, “How do you bring a sparkle to a man’s eyes?” She would say, “Shine the torch, the one he takes to go to the toilet, and shine it in his ear.”
