Do you remember Shrinky Dinks?
I do. Shrinky Dinks, for those of you too young to remember (but still go around wearing Charlie's Angels shirts like you've actually seen the show, you big posers), were these big sheets of plastic. You colored them, cut them out, stuck them in the oven, and they went from being these big colored pieces of plastic to little colored pieces of plastic! Doesn't that sound like fun?
No, I don't think so, either.
And this bothers me, because at the time, I thought they were the coolest things since Blondie. This leads me to believe that somebody was slipping something into our water supply. I mean, how else can we explain ABBA? Or, for that matter, the fact that we were all walking around looking incredibly goofy and nobody even noticed. I personally have this theory that the 70's were the fashion industry's attempt at controlling overpopulation by making everybody as unattractive as possible. Unfortunately, we countered by coming up with the sexual revolution and that plan went out the window.
Actually, when I say "we" I shouldn't really include myself. When the sexual revolution reached its peak, I was about 3 years old, and not really in a position to meet women. (It's hard to have a nightlife when your bedtime is 7:30.) And you know, I'm pretty pissed I missed out.
In fact, I'm kind of annoyed that every other decade has been fun for young adults except for this one. I mean, the 50's were fun because if you ever had a problem, you just went into massive denial. Or got married. Whichever. The 60's were fun, because everybody was smoking pot, the 70's were fun because everybody was having sex, and the 80's were just one big shopping spree. So now it's the 90's and what do we have? Recycling. Whoopie. I'm thinking we should go down to the exchange department at Sears and ask if we can trade in this decade for something more fun.
Short of that, we should have another sexual revolution. Now, I'm not talking anything as crazy as the 70's when you went around screwing anything that moved (or was capable of moving if it weren't passed out on your brown-and-orange corduroy couch). I just think we should change a few of the rules.
First, women should stop faking orgasms. Yeah, I know, you're probably shocked that a guy is suggesting this, but I really think it'll help us out. Sure, we might act like we know all about sex, but unless there happens to be a Time/Life Books series on the subject, we're actually quite clueless. Okay, we know some of the basics because we all had to watch those filmstrips about sex in elementary school (accompanied by that distorted elementary-school filmstrip music), but they never taught us technique. And if women go around faking orgasms all the time, we'll never know if we get it right.
And don't worry about harming our fragile egos. Because I assure you that men really can't bear a grudge for all that long. Mostly because it's too hard for us to remember. When two men fight, they have a big blow-out with lots of yelling and wearing and hitting each other with 2x4's when the ref isn't looking (no, wait, that's pro wrestling), then next day, they're going out for beers. When two women fight, they refuse to talk to each other for months and months. Men could never do that. We'd have to make a written list of people we're refusing to talk to so we don't forget. Then we'd lost the list. Probably after a night of going out for beers. But I digress...
Second, we should get rid of beer commercials. I have this theory that all beer commercials try to get you to start drinking by really bumming you out. In essence, all beer commercials work like this:
Third, short guys who are into computers should automatically make People magazine's Most Sexiest list. But I think we can all agree that's pretty much a given.
Finally, we really should address the problem of impotence, which brings me back to the entire Shrinky Dink issue...
Important Literary Note: Notice how I made the entire topic go full-circle? This is a sign that I'm really a great writer. Just ask any English teacher. Of course, these are people who also think Charles Dickens is a great writer, so you shouldn't value their opinions too much.
...actually, I don't have anything to say about impotence. I just thought making it back to the Shrinky Dink issue was good closure 'cuz it tied up all the loose ends.
Except maybe for explaining ABBA.