This week, I’m asked to say what I have
to say in 725 words — 800 words are too many, 700 too few.
Today’s topic is women. No 700-word
problem here, for I’ve been observing women now for 65 years,
and, in my teens and twenties, my observation was nearly a
full-time occupation. Here, then, is what I know so far: Women will
never take the last office doughnut in the box, never. Bring a
dozen doughnuts to an office of 10 women and one man, and the man
will not only get his original early-morning original doughnut but
will also have all day to eat that last doughnut.
And another thing I know for sure about women
is . . . er . . . (Word count: 119)
Filler. I’ve
known Tommie “Snorts” Sullivan and Father Frog since we
shared a Little League outfield in 1950. Although we live cities
apart nowadays, we get together occasionally, have a beer, and
spend time updating histories. It’s therapeutic, really, for
even manly men such as we need an outlet where we can talk of
intimate, sensitive, personal concerns and problems.
“I’ll be 65 tomorrow,”
reports Snorts, “and I’ve decided to be old. Not
new-age old, working-out-in-a-gym old, auditing-a-college-course old, but ‘honest’ old —
like our fathers who fought WWII were honest old at 65. Naps old,
left-turn-signal-locked-in-the-on-position old, hitch-up-pants old.
“Tomorrow I will have coffee at 4:30
a.m. instead of sleeping in till 5. Today I fear no man; tomorrow I
will fear a 6-year-girl in a pinafore dress.”
“Will you be drooling?” I asked.
“Can’t have no beer with a drooler.”
“Not sure,” he answered.
“Have to wait and see — but I will be wearing a cheap
toupee because my grandfather wore one. Never could figure the
reason of it; one day he’d wear it, next day not. Might take
it off midconversation and stuff it in his pocket. Looked like he
ripped it out of a chicken-stained shag rug with a rusty claw
hammer — damn thing changed colors on the even hour.”
“Ever tell ya about the time I had six
hits in five at-bats against Whitey Ford in a playoff game in
’64?” I said. “We’re down 5-4, bottom of
the ninth; I had our only four hits, all homers, and I knew it was
now or never, ’cause no one else could handle Whitey that
day. Having no alternative, I hammered a high inside fastball off
the centerfield wall with such force that it shot on a line straight
back over home plate.
“Naturally, with my blinding speed,
I’d already reached home with the tying run as the ricochet
pellet returned to cross the dish. So I calmly picked up the bat
and hit another homer. Five at-bats — six hits. Reason you
don’t see me in the record books is because I batted over
.1000 and .1000 is the maximum they allow.”
Father Sam O’Malley, forever called
Frog in our circle because of a long-ago slide into second base
with his much-loved pet frog in his sliding-side pocket (not a
pretty sight), is a Jesuit priest. In Father Frog’s day you
couldn’t be an official ordained Jesuit until you were 33
years old and knew everything once. Frog is 66 now and claims to
know everything twice.
“I need a name for my new dog,” Frog
injects. “Thinking of calling him Hardscrabble. Whaddya think?”
“Frog, did I ever tell you about the
time in ’73 I played an 18-hole golf course in nine strokes?
Trained a Croatian crow to bite the ball in half mid-flight, carry
the half-ball to the hole in his beak, and drop it in.”
“The bird dropped the half ball into a hole in his beak?”
“Frog, nobody likes a smartass
know-it-all. You were better off when you were an idiot —
like Snorts
here.”
“It is my considered opinion,”
says Snorts, “that KFC uses only 10 herbs and spices when you
get carryout. Sure, when you eat in they use 11— but
carryout, you only get 10.”
That evening. My
Sainted Wife, the most feminine person on Earth and therefore busy
writing a thank-you note to thank someone for sending her a
thank-you note: “How’s Tom handling it since he lost his eye
in the accident?”
Me: “Snorts has only one eye?”
This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2005.
