I was watching football with a friend and he said “the Jets are getting spanked.” I’ve never heard of spanked being used that way. I’m convinced that the word spank has the most meanings of any word I’ve come across. You can spank your kid when he is bad. Take that same activity and apply it to a dating situation and it means something very different.
You can spank someone on the sports field by running up the score. You can spank a monkey and spank your monkey, two separate activities. And if someone gives you trouble for spanking your monkey, you can spank them.
In speaking about spanking my monkey, I’m writing an autobiography: it’s called Craig on Craig - One Man’s Guide to Self-Gratification. Self-gratification is about self love, and self love is one of the underrated loves. I do more for me than anyone. I wake me up every day, I bathe me, I go to work for me, and at the end of the week I give me all of the money. I take me to the gym; I even hand feed me. It makes sense that I should love me through hand manipulation.
Self-gratification is my favorite hand gesture. My least favorite is the handshake. Touching hands is such an arbitrary way to greet someone; you really can’t get a feel for someone from a handshake, you can only tell how strong their hand is. And if the shaker has large hands like I do, it puts the shakee at a disadvantage. In addition to the traditional handshake, there is the arm wrestle grab, the beer mug handshake, the two fist bump, the high five and the hand shake with the half hug. Most times, the other person and I have a different method of hand touching we would like to use and it becomes quite awkward.
After taking a look at this silly way of greeting, the way dogs greet doesn’t seem so crazy; yeah, the butt sniffing. You can tell a lot about someone from a butt sniff: you know if they showered today. Sometimes you can tell what they had for lunch. And if you don’t like someone, during the greeting you have a unique opportunity to let it slip out how you feel. I look forward to the day where we evolve to a society of ass sniffers rather than these hand touching Neanderthals we’ve become.
Since I’m not a big fan of touching other people’s hands, it’s no wonder that the term second hand bothers me. It’s such an odd term. If you buy a used pair of jeans, it’s called second hand. Shouldn’t it be second leg since yours are the second set of legs that have been in them; even second foot would work, but second hand? The only way you can call jeans second hand is if Married with Children’s Al Bundy owned them before you.
When I do the hand down the pants thing, I feel like a real man. And most men want to be loved by women and feared by men. Somehow my life is the opposite; women run away screaming and every able bodied homosexual is driving pretty strong for the hoop.
With this in mind, I tried dating anyway. Dating is like getting a new car: there’s the closed end lease for people who you have fun with but you only want to hang out with for a short period of time. If you think they have long term potential, you go for the open ended lease; it gives you more options. The purchase is when you know she’s a keeper; you want to drive this car at least three times a week, but you don’t want anyone else behind the wheel. Some people are into car swapping. I could never do that. I’d be afraid she’d come back with a damaged headlight and stains on her seat. The most interesting of these is the one day rental. You only have it for a short period of time, you don’t want to see it again and you do things with it you would never do with a keeper. And afterward, you’re not sure of the name. “Was it a Honda or a Buick?”
Dating has been going on ever since the beginning of time. The first date I remember hearing about was Jack and Jill; yeah the two that went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. We all know that water flows downhill and couldn’t stay up there. So either both Jack and Jill were incredibly stupid or Jack had another agenda at the top of that hill. I think Jack had his hand in more than Jill’s pail. I guess that would make her pants second hand too.
