Brothers! Fellow warriors! Don't fall for it. I tell you, there looms a secret conspiracy against all that is hairy and gruff and it wafts through our culture like a dog fart on the breeze. There is a clandestine effort going on out there to make soft what should be rough; to take those who traditionally have been noted, favorably, for the age-old ability to beat others senseless and to inject us with a poison designed to release its toxic sensitivity into our testosterone rivers, thereby turning the subterranean piranhas of aggression into insipid guppies. Beware! Whence comes this insidious, dark force? From advertising, the media and . . .
women.
(Ladies . . . stick with me here, please. I realize this an artless way to appeal to one's audience, but I'm reasonably desperate.)
Where has gone the sword? Where, the battle-axe (yes, with an "e" at the end, dammit)? Where is the noble stench of grunting contention? I'll tell you where: scrubbed off or our unnecessarily moisturized skin with a loofah and whirling, perfumed with body wash, down the drains of the full, sloshing tub of glorious blubber that we all once were.
That's where. But it is not too late. The power to return us all to our former forest-chested glory is in your (
MANICURED?) hands. Let me lift the veil from your eyes, my bewitched pal . . .
Perfuming and moisturizing, for example. Would you do this voluntarily? Of course not. It's silly. So the advertisers use manipulative language to smokescreen us. They seduce our warrior natures with phrases like: "
power away dirt" and "
defeat dry skin" with "active hydrators". They bid us to "unleash" the power that lies dormant, as if it were a sleeping dragon's conflagratory breath, in our showers. For the love of God! However they package it, you wind up with
soft skin. Do you hear this? Don't fall for the lies, my friends. Next thing you know, we'll be tweezing stuff. (I know, I know -- some dudes already do that. It's just too horrifying for me to ponder.)
And the women in our lives? (Just to be safe, let's not tell my wife about this post.) These plotting flibbertigibbets want to recreate us in their own image. I can feel it. Do you know what I did this morning? I ate yogurt with fruit in it and a little granola sprinkled on top.
Fruit, I said. And my wife? She blends stuff up and puts it into milkshakes. (Actually, she blends up just about everything and drinks it. Check out her site to the right if you don't believe me. I'm thinking of trying it with a hamburger -- no pickles.) Anyway, I enjoyed the most delicious chocolate milkshake the other day, only to discover, afterward, that the scheming wench had blended spinach into it. I mean, getting me to clean my own crumbs off of the counter is one thing, but slipping nutrition into what remains decadent, mindless yumminess is downright evil. Just when you think you can trust a girl. It's affecting me like a drug. I'm slipping. I'm playing right into that suburban Circe's hands. Parfaits, indeed.
But I will not give in. Nor should the rest of you, my stinking brethren. If we start softening up, the world could become an unrecognizable place. Millions of military employees will be out of work. (Do you think Patton moisturized?) If we wind up healthy, we could very well lose our chance to face cancer with bravado. If we start caring about personal aesthetics, we could easily wind up doing lunatic crap like buying art or listening to
La Boheme. Danger lurks around every corner, bub. Beware. And don't say I didn't warn you when you find yourself giggling as the cuddly puppy of social conditioning licks you into submission.
