Just Off Center

Blogging out of Microsoft Word is a hassle to be sure, but what’s a fellow to do when the man is eying his Internet travels? But here I am at work after being off for about ten days. It was not exactly a relaxing time, but I did get plenty of Paper Mario in. I just can’t seem to beat that cheating witch queen. I’d get into the list of the haul of cool shit I got this year, but I wouldn’t want to come across as materialistic and shallow. But the Ipod is probably the coolest present I’ve ever gotten. I remember when I was six, my parents (aka. Santa) got me an Animal puppet. You know, Animal from the Muppets? Well he had this big slit up his back and you could move his mouth and blink his eyes. He became my bestest friend in the whole wide world. I still have him stored with all of Nina’s old stuffed animals and dolls. But the Ipod was probably even better than that.

I’ve suffered my first monetary loss as a result of my obsession with the new Ipod Nina got me for Christmas. I went to the grocery store to pick up some ingredient for Nina’s nachos. When I got finished at the self-service checkout I decided to pull out $20 on debit for the week. When the cash is dispensed, the machine lets out this really loud and annoying beep to remind you not to take your cash. Oh yeah, that’s supplemental to the “Don’t forget to take your cash just below the scanner” that the checkout machine says twice after spitting out your receipt. But I was jamming out to some Portishead with my Ipod and simply didn’t hear it. My head must have been somewhere else too, because beep or no bee, this is not something I usually forget to check for. By the time I got back to the store, the cash was gone. There was a black man in his mid thirties at the same machine I was at who looked completely innocent. I shot him an accusing glare anyway, just to keep tensions rocking. Anyway I came home feeling stupid and angry. Nina did a very good job of not saying a single fucking peep to me about how stupid it was.

One of the other great presents I got from Nina was this kick ass comic book called “Y”. That’s “Y” as in the Y-chromosome, or that which makes me male. This is unlike any comic I have ever read. There are no superheroes. People shoot people in the fucking head. They say “fuck” and “shit”, and even “cunt”. The graphically illustrate decomposing bodies. In short, this book is just fucked up. It’s all about this out of work English grad named Yorick and his travels through America trying to figure out why he’s the only man left. Oh yeah, the book is also about every Y-chromosome carrier in the whole world dying a horrible, blood spitting, gurgling death all at the same time. Even the male animals keel over. But for some reason, Yorick and his monkey, Ampersand, have survived and are walking around incognito.

You’d think that the last guy on Earth would be a pretty sought after gent. But he spends most of the comic avoiding (or failing to avoid) getting his ass kicked or killed. One of the things that I really loved about this book was the way it portrayed the world that was left without any men. It wasn’t all PC and girl-power showing all the women just going about their lives, but with no guns or fear of that extra slice of cheesecake. There was no electricity. Most of the planes were down. There was no more food being grown. Running water had stopped. Basically, all the women were living like civilized animals. And they were sad. There was crying and suicidal tendencies over not only the lost husbands and sons, but a discussion about how all the great rockers are gone like Dylan and the Stones gave it a very real feel. They also took care to note how the men didn’t just disappear, but that there were now about 3.3 billion human corpses slumped over everywhere that had to be dealt with.

So then I got to wondering what the world would really be like if the world’s men really did just die like that. Would the women be able to sustain themselves? Would they learn all of the industries as the men did? Of course there would be some time in uncontrollable mourning and then the power curve of learning all these new jobs that had previously been done by the men. But after a while I think that the lights would come back on and the markets would reestablish their supply chains. Crops would be grown and without question the water would come back. I mean, we’re talking a world without working toilets. Suddenly the whole point of Women’s Lib would become obsolete. There would no longer be a choice between career or homemaker. Like the men, homemaking would become the lazy and irresponsible person’s career. The soft, undereducated, paternally dependant women of the world would have to learn how to do trade labor. The best jobs would go to the women who had been already been working in their respective fields.

But what if all of the women died? What if all at once every woman on Earth just fell over, dead? Would we be able to go on with life? I think that things would be pretty similar in either situation. Perhaps the utilities would remain more intact since men already hold most of those jobs. Government would remain pretty stable. The farmers would be able to keep up with the now halved rate of production. But the suicide rate would probably be much higher. Why continue living in a world without women? I know that most women would think that we’d just all learn to fuck each other and declare football season to be eleven months long. But when I think about it, if I lost Nina, my friends, my mom and sister, my aunts, grandma, and two out of my three cats I’d be so overwhelmed with grief that I’d probably either eat a barrel or just start doing large amounts of drugs and binge drinking until some vital organ failed.

Now, what if all of the men had died…except me? What if I was the only one left? I’m not so sure that I’d be ready to expose myself to the world without some damn fine protection. I’d guess that the remaining female geneticists would want to pour over my DNA with a fine-toothed comb. I would be put out to stud, and lose most, if not all, of the freedoms I now enjoy. But this would be for the good of humanity, so I couldn’t say no, right? I’m not so sure about that.

How much impregnating can a single man accomplish? At my peak I’d be able to pop off about five to eight shots per day. Assuming that every one of those resulted in fertilization, which it wouldn’t, I’d still only be able to sire less than 3,000 kids per year. Given a timeframe of about fifty years to continue this service, I’d be the father of only 150,000 kids. The Law of Averages cuts about half of them out for continued service, due to them being born female. Mark another 10% for being gay and I’ve only added another 67,500 productive males to this world. That’s not enough to populate even a very small city. No, they’d have to find a way to clone my sperm for distribution. And they’d want to find a way to remove those aspects of my psyche that are less than favorable. Do we really need every newborn in this world to be an arrogant narcissist?

But if there was only one woman left? Whoa. Girlfriend might as well down a bottle of pills that day, because her life is utterly fucked. I seriously doubt that she’d get the queen bee’s seat on the throne of humanity, as some would predict. I mean with only two working ovaries in the whole world, the species is definitely over. Time to start blowing shit up, boys! I mean, women are condemned as the evil of humanity too often by the ignorant and guilt-laden. Could that burden be born by a single chick? What if she’s…say…unfortunate looking? I think an assassination attempt would be in the works in the first hours. But then again, knowing that since civilization has failed and that the entire security force in this world would have nothing left to protect, she’d probably be entrusted to good, safe hands. Ah, who knows? I’m just glad it hasn’t happened. Anyway, it’s a good comic. Check it out. And buy an Ipod. They’re like the old friend you never met.