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\author{\large \bf Joseph Mack \copyright ~2015,2016}
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5112 Longwood Dr.				\> Home: (919)-401-2047 \\
Durham, NC, 27713-8010				\> e-mail: jmack@austintek.com \\
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After seeing Anoo 17 May 2016

She thought it was too sexual, from the point of view of an adult,
rather than an innocent 6yr old.

I wasn't that innocent. I did want to find out how my girlfriend was made.

I need to

o make her a person - why was she my girlfriend. eg we played together,
cards and jacks, it was always fun and she was good company.

have insight into little Joe - what did I like doing

o I liked climbing the hill behind our house from where I could
look out onto the whole town and the hills around it.
I liked looking at the frogs in the creek.
I built balsa planes and like doing carpentry,
cutting wood and joining them together with nails.

Authors Notes:
The purpose of this piece is to get more allies amongst women for men,
by showing that men are doing the best they can in the confusing world they live in.

Men are not going to get out of their stuff about women,
until women recognise that they are part of the solution.
Women's role is to acknowledge that men have been given bad information
and to say "how can I help?"

My fear here is that women are going to react "eew, creepy", 
rather than "this guy is looking at real stuff in his life and trying to work it out".

Louis C.K. and Jim Jeffries would have no trouble with this material,
but I'm not looking to occupy their slot.

This is also terrible stuff from my childhood.
I wasn't allowed to go to an academic school,
where I might have developed some sensitivities to the finer things in life.
Instead I was sent to military school to make a man of me,
that is to say - play football and learn to kill, 
all this with a bunch of thugs for my peers.
This made me terrified of things like ballet.
My mother then told me I was insensitive.

Anoo wants me to say how guys suffer silently.
I'm embarrassed to say what it is.
The woman will emotionally disconnect;
I'll be treated as an idiot, 
told that she doesn't like going places socially with me, 
she'll be frosty with me.
In bed she'll lie with her back to me.
I won't get any affection.
I'll be an unperson.
The people who want to cast men into a bad light will
say "you only want sex".

She also wants to know the secret thoughts that men have.
(here doctors and nurses).

thanks to Athol Kay for Aunt Mildred

thanks to Alana Massey for the sock and underwear drawer of my brain.

thanks to Gabrielle Burton, Heartbreak Hotel, p14, for the phrase "chill the dead".

thanks to Cynthia Heimel for telling me about the brain pan.

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\Large

0 min

\begin{comment}
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
Back in my youth, dates would take me to ballet and dance recitals
to increase my sensitivity to the finer things in life.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
What seemed to get the girls riled up the most was
that the guys would go out drinking 
and wind up beating each other up a bit.
I really couldn't see the harm in it.
Once you got things straightened out with your opponent,
you'd be on good terms by the next day.

(move from place to place, playing each role)

One day, my girlfriend Zelda, says to me
"Esmerelda took Boris to the ballet last week 
and she says he had a great time."

Women sure make you run the gauntlet, 
before they'll let you have anything to do with them.
Well I'll be damned if I'm going to let Boris out-sensitive me,
so I said "well, OK, sure!".

I don't know why she had to bring Boris into this.
Why am I always being compared to him?
I can't stand it.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
Boris is a flaming asshole. 
I'm going to beat the crap out of him next time I see him.

(I'd like to make Zelda a bitch, but you love her and don't realise that she's a bitch)

There must bave been a concerted effort on the part of the girls, 
as most of my friends seemed to have got roped in as well.
I arrived trussed up like a turkey
(struggle with tie), 
to find half the guys I know there.
(look at each of them, and shrug one at a time.)
\end{comment}

Back in my youth, whenever I'd been on a few dates with a girl,
you know, 
something fun, 
like a nice day out on the lake fishing,
the next thing that would happen is that she'd ask {\bf me} on a date.
It was always the same thing.
She'd ask me to 

(look progressively more horrified, could use opera instead of symphony)

the symphony, 

or to a play 

or to the ballet.

The symphony was hard; it was nothing like Chuck Berry 
and everyone just sat immobile in their seats, for what seemed like hours.

Plays were harder - I could never see the point.

But the hardest of all was ... the ballet.

Sitting there in the dimly lit theatre, 
looking onto the brightly lit stage, 
occassionally I'd get a flash of what might be white bikini underwear
or something cut like a swimming costume.
I don't know what kept attracting my eye to this part of the dancer's costume.
Obviously it was a part of the artistry, 
\begin{comment}
I was supposed to be following,
\end{comment}
if only I could figure out what it was.
I knew that if I didn't track what was going on, 
I'd miss the whole point of the ballet
and the date would be a complete failure.
\begin{comment}
and I'd have to do it all again.

I was most anxious to impress my date  
with my sensitivity to the finer things in life,
if ever I could stop being distracted.
\end{comment}

(speak with mother's voice)

However, whenever I'd get a flash of white bikini underwear,
a voice in the back of my mind would go
"OMG! You're not supposed to look there."
\begin{comment}
I have no idea what it was
and I have no explanation for what was going on.
I only know that whatever it was, 
would distract me 
\end{comment}

The voice was my mother's of course, although I didn't recognise it.
It was from when I was 6yrs old.

\begin{comment}
My mother had been unhappy when she discovered
that we were getting on very well indeed.

My mother was the wife of the town doctor
and consequently was in the upper echelons of the social hierachy of the town.
Being a woman of god, she was also on best terms with the town minister 
(she happened to be on good terms with god too I might add).
My mother was the height of respectability and moral virtue in the town
and set the pace for all the other mothers.
\end{comment}

(Anoo says I have to be innocent little boy)

Back then, I had found my very first girlfriend.
\begin{comment}
She was the minister's daughter.
With my mother being the height of respectability,
the minister was quite happy to let his daughter play with me.
And as it turned out, 
my little girlfriend and I were well on the way to developing a good relationship.
\end{comment}

When you're little boy, 
there is absolutely nothing more fascinating in the whole world, 
than what little girls are made of.
There's even a poem to get you started.

Little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice.

It was the "all things nice" part that I was interested in.

\begin{comment}
When I wanted specifics,
I was told that 
it was none of my business.
This is your first lesson in being a male 
and what you learn is that you're not supposed to be a male.
Clearly something really important was going on here 
and I had to find out all about it.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
Of course adults could have handled the whole thing so easily, 
while we were in kindergarten.
All they had to do was show us hundreds of pictures of what we're all made of.
and what you do with those parts.
Most of us would be so grossed out, 
that we'd loose interest on the spot, 
and we wouldn't be able to think about it again without throwing up, 
till we reached puberty.
The rest of us would burst into fits of hysterical giggling
and wouldn't be able to keep a straight face about it,
till we reached puberty.
Either way, the problem for adults would be solved, 
at least till we reached puberty,
when of course all hell would break loose again ...
\end{comment}

Well it turns out that my little girlfriend didn't know what {\bf I} was made of either
and, as you can well imagine, she was just as interested in the subject as I was.
Our relationship had developed so well 
that we'd arrived at the stage that all kids reach.
It was the inevitable "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" stage.
We called it "doctors and nurses", but it was the same thing.
\begin{comment}
We didn't make the name up.
It was current with the kids at the time.
It wasn't like we invented the name or it was a secret.
We knew others did it too.
\end{comment}
It sounded like a heap of fun. 
Why not?
What could go wrong?

There must be all sorts of things we could do 
in this wonderful new playground we'd discovered.
We hadn't asked anyone what you do;
there was no need to bring anyone else in on this.
We were just going to figure it out between us.
It didn't seem all that complicated.
We started by checking each other out.
It was just an advanced version of what you do in the showers with the boys
at the swimming pool, except it was with a girl.
Sure it was different, but that's why you were doing it.

(no references to sex)

\begin{comment}
We never got to play "cars and garages".
We had never heard of it and no idea such a thing was possible.
I expect we would have got there without too much trouble;
we were smart, inquisitive kids and after all, we did like each other.
\end{comment}

However I didn't count on my kid brother. 
I let him know that three's a crowd and to get lost and go find his own girlfriend.
I expected him to go play somewhere else, and leave us alone.
The first couple of times he took the hint, 
but eventually he decided didn't like me enjoying life 
any more than my mother did, and he snitched on us.

\begin{comment}
This event turned out to be my first step into adulthood.
I learned that if you want to get anything done in life,
you have to be careful who knows what you're doing.
\end{comment}

When my mother saw the two of us with our pants down,
naturally the first thing she did was to congratulate both of us 
for our curiosity and spirit of enquiry.

(Anoo doesn't like sarcasm. Be straight, as a little kid would be.
Say what I expected, and what I got.)

haha. I'm just kidding.

All hell broke loose.
I suddenly realised that this part of a girl's body was much more important 
than ever I could have imagined.

(don't have any references to sex. talk about the girl,
who is she)

\begin{comment} 
I didn't understand it at the time,
but
now I see that 
we were having more fun with our sex life than our parents were 
and they were madder'n all hell about it.

What was the problem?
Were they worried about her becoming pregnant?
With both of us 6yrs old, we had plenty of time
to practive and get it right before we'd encounter any real problems,
but we weren't offered the option.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
It also set the tone for my relationship with my brother.
I'd find something neat to do and he tell our mother,
who stopped me.

I was taken for a little talk with my little girlfriend's father, the town minister.
He set me back on the path to righteousness.
\end{comment}

I never saw my little girlfriend again.
She just disappeared out of my life and I knew not to ask why.
I knew it was connected to that part of her body.
\begin{comment}
I also figured out that if I knew what was good for me,
not to ask or talk about girls ever again.
I didn't.
I was learning not to talk about anything I wanted or anything I liked.
\end{comment}

It was close to two decades before I had another girlfriend, 
who I was on equally good terms with.

Something had gone horrifically wrong with my developement.
My mother immediately started aversion therapy.
"Come give cigarette smoking Aunt Mildred a big kiss MUAH!"

(put my hands on my cheeks like they were bosoms,
allowing most of my face to be seen,
have my face wide open with suprise and shock.)

My 6 yr old face was plunged, 
by the grappling arms of overweight and matronly aunts,
into their powdered and perfumed ample bosoms. 
I had no affection for these people.
Why were they even in my life? 
\begin{comment}
I didn't do anything with them.
They just came, kissed me, ignored me, kissed me again and then left.
Being a male, I knew to pretend that their all enveloping tits didn't exist,
or at least told that I couldn't talk about them. 
Being a male, 
I wasn't allowed to complain about 
\end{comment}
I was being suffocated by  
the enveloping cloud of powder.
It was 
\begin{comment}
my generation's version of 
\end{comment}
waterboarding for little boys.

When, despite her best efforts, 
I still liked girls,
my mother brought in reinforcements - God.
\begin{comment}
the church stepped in to help straighten me out.
\end{comment}

(speak with voice of God)

Girls ... and thoughts about them, are the path to hell.

(Anoo would we really be naked from the waist down?
Again this looks like sex to her.)

I thought about girls a lot; I couldn't help it.
I knew where this was heading.
I was doomed. 
\begin{comment}
although I didn't want to tell anyone I thought so.
There'd be no busybodies.
\end{comment}
At least my little girlfriend would be there in hell too;
perhaps I could find her.
It shouldn't be too hard to spot her.
We'd both be naked from the waist down,
just like in all those dreams
when you arrive at school naked.
\begin{comment}
\end{comment}

Of course it was only in my childishness that
I thought there'd be any hope of finding my little girlfriend, 
amongst all the people in hell,
by looking for someone naked from the waist down.
As I found out later, in hell, most people are naked from the waist down.

Would my little girlfriend be happy to see me, 
or would she be too ashamed of her manifold wickedness to talk to me?
Would it help if I held out my hand to her 
and said I was sorry ... I'm really sorry ... I'm really really sorry?

\begin{comment}
(Is this where dreams of going to school naked from the waist down come from?)
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
Getting the chance to go to hell would have to wait.
For the moment I had to put all my efforts into getting to heaven,
and in my case it would be hard work.
\end{comment}

When the fear of hell didn't work 
and I still liked girls,
my mother was left with no other option;
as soon as I was old enough, in 7th grade,
she packed me off to military school.

\begin{comment}
This was several years later and by this time, 
the nasty little episode 
from her son's early childhood had been covered up 
or at least forgotten.
My mother's standing as a pillar of moral virtue in society 
had been safely restored.
\end{comment}

Ironically the goal of military school was to make a man out of me.
This was something, that until then, 
I had been making good progress on, 
all on my own, without any of their help.
\begin{comment}
I did spend a lot of time playing rugby, cricket and marching
up and down with a rifle, so that essential part of my manly education was covered.

While all her other attempts failed,
\end{comment}
Military school was a resounding success.
I didn't talk to a girl again till college.

So there I was, on my date, at the ballet, in the dimly lit theatre, 
seeing 20 sets of white bikini underpants out of 20 dancers,
all at the same time.
This clearly was not an accident.
Something fabulously artistic was happening,
but I'd missed the whole thing.

\begin{comment}
The sock and underwear drawer of my brain pan was in an uproar and 
\end{comment}
I was out for the count.

(Anoo, mother's reaction has to be earlier)

I had no idea that the story of my lost love at 6yrs old 
was still rattling around in 
the sock and underwear drawer of my brain pan,
where a pair of terrified 6 yr olds, 
my little girlfriend and I, 
naked from the waist down, 
were bawling our eyes out, 
while my bloated and obese mother towered over us, 
shreiking that our souls were damned 
and we were both going to hell.

\begin{comment}
All I knew was that the instant I'd see white bikini underwear,
I'd loose the rhythm and flow of the dance.
I would then have to recover 
and try to catch up with a dance, 
which by then, was way ahead of me.

This would happen so often, 
that barely had I recovered,
than I'd be presented with another flash of white bikini underwear.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
Of course, sitting in the dimly lit theatre,
I didn't have a clue that any of this was going on.
How was I to know that I was dying to find out how everything worked there,
but that if I did, I would go to hell.
\end{comment}

If you'd been there in the theatre with me and leaned over and told me
\begin{comment}
supremely rational being that I am, 
\end{comment}
that the sight of a female's body would send me to hell,
I would have said you were crazy. 
But that was exactly what was going on, 
except I had absolutely no idea about it at all.
I had repressed the whole thing.

\begin{comment}
As you can imagine, it was impossible to keep track of the dance.
I'd be following along nicely,
and then the choreographer would throw me a flash of artistry 
and my mind would fall apart.

A little while later, in the dimly lit theatre, 
after scrambling to recover,
I would have just picked up the
flow of the dance again and what do you know,
I'd suddenly see 20 sets of white bikini underpants.
Seeing 20 sets of white bikini underpants out of 20 dancers,
all at the same time,
was clearly not an accident.
Something fabulously artistic had just happened,
but I'd missed the whole thing.
The sock and underwear drawer of my brain pan was in an uproar and 
I was out for the count.
\end{comment}

(sigh)

\begin{comment}
Back in those days, 
there weren't females 
who would talk about why I was having such a hard time keeping track of the dance.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
The accepted explanation for my behaviour sitting in the audience, 
as everyone knows, is that males just don't get dance;
it's because we're insensitive and uncultivated hicks.
It's part of our DNA.

Women weren't any help sorting out the problem.
They don't like their dates commenting on 
the finer points of women's costumes or their bodies either,
especially the women whose bodies and costumes they've brought you to see.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
I knew if I said anything to Zelda,
she would screach at me, spit in my face 
and try to gouge my eyeballs out with her fingernails.
I know women don't know this, 
so I'm going to let you in on a little secret;
this approach just isn't helpful.

I know from everything you've learned, 
it looks like it should work, but it doesn't.
It also puts a bit of a damper on the rest of the evening together.
Guys have just decided it's best on a date,
to not to say too much and not to ask too many questions.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
The guys weren't any help either;
everyone of us was affected in exactly the same way.
None of us could follow what was going on.
At intermission,
we'd be drinking champagne and eating caviar.

(hold stemware, and look as if you're choking on your tie)
(hop from side to side, looking nervous)

The guy standing next to you,
probably the same guy you were beating up on the night before, 
would shoot you a surruptitious "are you following any of this?".
Sometimes, if his date wasn't watching, you'd get back a furtive 
"No, I have no idea. Every couple of minutes my mind goes completely blank."
We didn't know what to do.

In what seemed like no time at all,
we were all married.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
Well the guys that went on dates to the ballet were married at least.
The rest of the guys are still having fun,
drinking and beating each other up.
Sometimes I wistfully recall those days 
and wish I could go back and join them in the fun.

Zelda and I had three daughter, Aurora, Calyptra and Phaedra.
Zelda picked out the names.
I don't know where she got them.
Pretty neat names huh? 

Zelda and I had a son.
We went to all the 
productions of his school's Arts Department.
We're always going to recitals 
and watching the next generation of dancers.

Now I went, not because I'm a hostage to my insensitivity, goddammit, 
but because I knew most of the kids on stage.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
Only a few years before, they were disease vectors,
weekly bringing home a new contagion from day care,
contagion that would knock a horse flat.
Back then, immediately on arrival home, 
they'd commit all their energy
to attempting suicide on adult sized furniture
by cracking their heads on the edge of tables.
\end{comment}

In what seemed like no time at all,
I was living with one of these women and we had a son.
We went to all the 
productions of his school's Arts Department.
We're always going to recitals 
and watching the next generation of dancers.

\begin{comment}
When the kids start school, they can barely walk.
Next thing you know, they were dancing and all in time with each other. 
It was a miracle. 
You couldn't take your eyes off them.
It was just amazing. 
How does this happen?
\end{comment}


(make gestures like you're puzzled)

I wasn't seeing white bikini underpants anymore.
Instead I was seeing something with the same cut as shorts.
\begin{comment}
the shorts that I used to wear rowing.
\end{comment}
The shorts didn't change a thing.
I was now spending a lot of my time looking at shorts.
They weren't white anymore either;
they were different colours for different dance pieces,
and they always matched the other dancers in the piece.

\begin{comment}
I didn't know what to make of this,
but I knew not to mention it to Zelda.
I didn't want her to know that 
I still hadn't figured out, after all this time, 
how to follow the rhythm and flow of the dance.
Furthermore, 
I didn't think I should let on that I'd noticed the change in scenery.

Now I was seeing lots of shorts,
but the same thing kept happening;
my mind would jam and I'd loose track of the dance.
\end{comment}
I found I was having just as much trouble following the dancing,
as I did, 
when I was dating, back in the days of white bikini underwear.

\begin{comment}
The sudden and unannounced arrival of coloured shorts, 
instead of white bikini underwear, was not to be discussed.
I knew better than to ask Zelda about female's attire and bodies.
You're supposed to ask guys.
I knew what would happen there;
we're just as clueless on the matter as we were in college.

There was something else new.
Everything had gone PC.
Actresses were now actors.
Females didn't want to identify with ditzsy blondes of my generation of movies.
Instead they wanted to identify with the level headed male actors, 
who were good fathers, like Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.

In this new enlightened era,
girls bowed instead of curtseying.
I never had a problem with curtseying.
It's graceful, like a dance move,
and you see the person's face as they do it.
If they have a full dress, you get to see the material as the performer holds it out to the side.
You couldn't ask for anything more graceful than a curtsey.
Bowing doesn't seem graceful;
and the person's face disappears.

These weren't gawky skinny young girls,
all elbows, knees and with narrow hips like a boy, anymore. 
These were curvy, fully developed, teenage girls, with adult women's bodies.
I was looking at the real thing. 
In the rush to PC-ness, 
no-one remembered why curtseying had been invented.

When I was growing up, 
girls were taught not to lean over when they were facing someone.
If you have to do that, you cover yourself first.

(lean over, facing the audience,
delicately hold hand up to upper chest, 
move from side to side while looking for something to eat,
reaching further and further across the table, 
so that everyone in the audience gets to look down the front of your dress,
then grab some food from really far away,
and snarf it down)

So there I was, sitting in the dimly lit auditorium, 
completely unaware, 
that in the time since I was in college,
feminists had killed off curtseying.

The first time a whole row of these young women,
bowed deeply to me and smiled innocently to show their joy in their dancing,
my eyes nearly popped out. 

I know that we men are not supposed to notice these things,
but we just do.
We can't help it.
That's the way we are.
How can you accept that something that's there right in front of you,
isn't there.
So shoot the messenger.

What makes it even worse, 
is that we want to talk about what we see,
and as often as not the person we wind up talking to, 
is sitting next to us and she's a woman.

I turned to Zelda.
I was about to say "Ah ... Doesn't anyone know what just happened?
Didn't the mothers see that?
I'm sure all the fathers did."

(lift finger as say "ah" as if to emphasise the point)

I got as far as "Ah ...", 
when Zelda turned to me with a look that 
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
could have 
killed.
I knew if I said even one more word, 
she would breathe fire, reducing me to ashes.

(blow out finger multiple times)
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
would chill the dead.

I knew if I said even one more word, 
she would breathe a blast of dry ice at me,
shattering me into a million pieces.

(shiver)

Who on earth ever thought of having girls bow, 
rather than curtseying?
It definitely wasn't a man. 
Any father who suggested such a thing,
would be told "that's not funny" and put on hard rations straight away.
Nope, it definitely wasn't a guy; 
the repercussions were more than any man could handle.

This had to have been arranged by the mothers.
These were the same women,
who, when they were this age, were indoctrinated
never to lean over in front of someone.
These mothers, 
remembering all the times they couldn't lean over when they were young,
were going to make damn sure their daughters 
leaned over any time they liked.

Well us guys just suffer these things silently.
We know better than to say anything at this stage.
We'll be told we don't understand women,
and that we're just oafs.
When I get home,
I'll hear how she can't take take me anywhere.
I'll get a harrumph, rather than a good night kiss, 
and she'll roll over and sleep with her back to me.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment} 
No-one asks us if we're having a good time;
no-one cares.
We're just decorative.
(and pay the bills).
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
At intermission, 
the guys huddled together, drinking cool-aid and eating oreo cookies.

(do chair sequence, ie flip from one spot to the other,
playing both roles.)

"Boris, what's with the shorts?"

"beat's me. I was expecting white bikini underpants like 
when Esmerelda and I used to go on dates.
No-one's said a word about the shorts.
I have no idea what's going on."

We all disperse, as the women figure out what we're doing,
and converge on our little group huddled together, 
before we can start talking about the shorts.
\end{comment}

\begin{comment}
The girls all left for college,
but 
\end{comment}

(Anoo suggests that the trip to Harry and May be collapsed
into the school recitals.
There's no need to take the audience on another trip here.)

My son left for college, and I lost connection with the school,
but a pair of my friends, Harry and May have a daughter, Hibiscus.
Hibiscus was in high school and had been dancing since she was a little girl.
I arranged to visit on a weekend when Hibiscus was dancing.

\begin{comment}
She's just gone off to college, 
where she's going to dance some more.
Harry lives about 6 hours north of here.
I go to Hibiscus's recitals whenever I get a chance
and make a weekend of it.

Zelda never comes along; she thinks Harry's a male chauvenist pig.

Well he may be,
but he's a male chauvinist pig, 
who lives out in the country in a normal house.
He's not like me trapped in suburbia, 
who has only a two car garage to put my stuff in.
He has a real 60'x30' steel framed
shed out the back for normal household tools,
like a mill, lathe, bandsaw, table saw and hoist.
He also has a bobcat.

(Pretend to drive a bobcat with tracks)

You can move whole trees with this thing.

I mean there is nothing quite so fulfilling 
as spending a day in a bobcat digging a 20' hole in the ground.

One day I lowered the bucket down to chair height at the end of the picnic table
and I sat the girls in the bucket and let them eat their lunch there
while Harry and I sat at the table.
I sent a photo to Zelda, who was upset that their dresses would be getting dirty.
I told her that I'd put my overalls down in the bucket first,
but when we got home, 
Zelda must have found a molecule of dirt in one of their dresses.
Zelda just doesn't get bobcats.
Gee, you have to live sometimes.

Harry also has horses, which I ride.

Harry loves his wife too.
Even if the guy is a male chauvenist pig,
you can cut a bit of slack for a guy with a bobcat.
\end{comment}

In the morning Hibiscus
left early for the theatre to prepare for the production.
Then just as we're about to leave,
Hibiscus calls.
It's an emergency; she forgotten her pink spandex and needed it right now.
You've got to understand; this is a teenage girl.
If she doesn't get her pink spandex,
it will be the end of the earth.

(do a valley girl accent - this part won't be needed if I collapse
the trip to Harry and May into a school recital.)

There was no way a male would get this right.
Harry and I stood aside, 
while May stepped through the chaos of a teenage girl's bedroom.
There was no pink spandex.
Mom just grabbed what she could,
shrugged her shoulders and exited through the front door.

\begin{comment}
Even a guy knows that when a teenage girl wants pink spandex, 
that only pink spandex will do, or the universe will collapse.
We were leaving without pink spandex.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
An iceberg had breached the hull and the ship was doomed.
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
Harry and I exchanged glances.
Only May didn't understand the consequences of what had just happened.

Well yes, I could have saved the day.
I'd just have to go into a teenage girl's room and sort through her underwear.
May would hand the pink spandex to Hibiscus and say 
"here, Joe found these for you. Guys are much better at this sort of thing." 
\end{comment}
\begin{comment}
I chose instead the icy waters of the Atlantic.
I knew I had a better chance of surviving in that.
We left with the engine room flooded and the ship listing badly.
I wasn't going there.
\end{comment}

As I'm sure everyone in this room, but me, knows,
there are two types of spandex;
spandex with legs and spandex with shorts.
Mom had brought the spandex with legs;
Hibiscus wanted the spandex with shorts.
\begin{comment}
It was the end of the earth -
Mom was completely stupid.
Hibiscus would have to go on stage without her pink spandex.

To make it even worse,
Hibiscus had a zit on the bridge of her nose, 
clearly showing through her foundation.
This was a zit that Harry and I, 
clueless males, had completely missed, 
even when looking directly at her.
This would gross out everyone,
everyone in the audience through to the back of the theatre,
everyone except Harry and I that is. 
No-one would ever go on a date with her.
She was just going to die.
The performance would be a disaster.
She'd never be able to show her face again.

It was turning out to be a bad day all around.
I don't know how teenage girls survive their parents and make it through to adulthood.

I asked May what would happen.
\end{comment}

May was practical "she'll borrow a pair from someone else.
They'll be the wrong colour, but for this dance it won't matter."

I asked May about the spandex.
Whatever it was, it clearly was a critical part of the show.
This turns out to be the underwear, 
cut like shorts, 
that I'd been seeing for several years now,
that had replaced the white bikini underwear of my dating days.
Just by being at the right place at the right time,
I had found out, 
that they absolutely had to be, 
just had to be, 
the right colour.
Why was this? I wondered.

Hibiscus came out for the first piece, 
doing a solo wearing black spandex shorts.
\begin{comment}
The black spandex seemed to match her costume just fine. 
\end{comment}
To my well practiced eye.
the black spandex was just as good as pink spandex for this piece.

In the first half of the program, 
I noticed in any piece, 
that all the girls were wearing exactly the same colour and style of spandex shorts.
Not only that, the colour of the girls shorts exactly matched
the colour of the rest of their costume.

\begin{comment}
This doesn't happen with guys.
You put 8 guys in a rowing shell 
and none of them are going to be wearing the same underpants much less the same colour, 
much less a colour that matched their team's shirt colour.
Guys just aren't colour coordinated it seems.
I never once heard a coach say "OK guys, it's green underpants on saturday".
Male athletes are going to have to start wearing underwear all the same colour
as their teammates, and the same colour as their shirts.
\end{comment}

The spandex shorts at Hibiscus's recital weren't subtle skin colours.
They were dayglo green or bright pink.
What I was seeing on stage was clearly meant to be seen and involved some planning.

May has always been helpful explaining the world of women to me.
I could talk to May.
\begin{comment}
She wouldn't screach at me, 
spit in my face 
and try to gouge my eyeballs out with her fingernails
just for asking a simple question about the world of females.
\end{comment}
At intermission, I asked her about the spandex pants.
Why were girls wearing them, rather than the white bikini pants of yesteryear?

"Ah ... Joe. That's because the girls are upside down sometimes."

Oh?! so I'm supposed to look there?!

Well if that's the case, why isn't someone telling us?
At the beginning, when they tell you to turn off your cell phones,
the MC should explain the new rules

(voice of side show barker)

(Anoo says to leave out viewing pleasure - it looks like sex to her)

"Men! Tonight, for your viewing pleasure,
the dancers are wearing shorts under their costumes.
Relax and enjoy the show."

Obviously this replacement of white bikini underpants by spandex shorts
is not for the benefit of us males,
otherwise we'd be told that it's now OK to look.
May must have inadvertently let this secret slip out of the female world
and I'm the first male to know.
I hope she doesn't get her female certificate revoked for leaking this information.

In the second half of the show, 
for the first time in my life,
I had no trouble following the dancing.

12min

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