Procrastination? You'll go blind!

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As I move through middle age, I reminisce more and more about my schooldays. One salient memory involves a terrifying science teacher and a gaggle of semi-illiterate chemistry students

It was spring 1972, and examinations were looming; important ones that could determine our academic futures. Sitting in the chemistry laboratory along with my 14-year-old school mates – almost all boys (it was an age when girls rarely studied science subjects) – I awaited the arrival of Mr Webster, the head of the science department.

Mr Webster terrified any pupil who ventured within 50 yards of him. He didn’t need to shout; one look sufficed to instil bowel-blasting dread in even the bravest of teenage students. So when he entered the classroom at 9.00 am sharp on that sunny April morning, the chatter amongst us instantly ceased. He strode to his desk, turned to face us, and his laser-gaze scanned the arc of potential victims who were all head bowed, avoiding his stare. Suffocating silence lay over the room like a huge polythene blanket. It must have been 30 seconds before Mr Webster spoke; it felt much longer.

“Procrastination”

Nobody responded. All one could hear was the faint whistling of Bunsen burners from the adjacent laboratory

Mr Webster grimaced, grabbed his white chalk, turned to the blackboard and wrote:

PROCRASTINATION

He turned to face his perplexed class, pointed at the board and asked, “Anyone care to comment?”

I later realized that the point he was trying to make related to our lack of revision for the imminent examinations, and how we were all putting off until tomorrow the work we should have been doing today. But, at the time, none of us understood what the word meant; we were all 14-year-old scientists, not English scholars! I sneaked a peep inside my chemistry textbook to see if the definition of procrastination lay in the same chapter as the one describing distillation, evaporation and condensation, but to no avail. For one terrible moment I wondered whether he was privy to our solitary night time practices, and had concluded that our daily “cranking the shank” was impairing eye-sight to an extent that interfered with our ability to name the elements in the periodic table.

Frustrated by our lack of comprehension, Mr Webster threw the chalk onto the table, commanded us to "look the word up in a dictionary," and walked out of the classroom, leaving us  teacher-less for the remainder of the session. He was a strange, strange man.

Ah, happy days!   

What to say, and not to say, to your man – a tutorial

Contrary to popular female perception, we men are sensitive creatures. Beneath those steely exteriors cower vulnerable boys, scanning their environments for morsels of evidence that we are valued. Our partners provide the richest, and most potent source, of information to shape our conclusions as to whether we are wimps or alpha males.

So ladies (at least those involved in heterosexual relationships) you have the power. One utterance from those glossy lips can energize or destroy the man in your life. A casual comment can deflate your mate into an impotent quivering piece of blubber, or transform him into a strutting, testosterone-fuelled superhero.   

As I enter middle age, and beyond, I’ve been reflecting on four decades of interactions with women and can now deliver the definitive tutorial, entitled, “What to say, and what not to say, to your man”.

Scenario 1: Man buys woman a gift, or shows thoughtfulness by cooking her favourite meal.

DEFLATE response: “Ah, that’s sweet of you.”

BOOST response: “You’re the best.”

The “sweet” comment, much used by the fairer of the species, is sickly and patronising; the kind of thing one might say to a 2-year-old niece when she offers you a suck of her lollipop. In contrast, telling your man he’s “the best” taps into his primal need to be head of the pack, reassuring him that (at least in the eyes of his partner) he is number one and will later have his pick of the on-heat females (which, of course, will be you). 

Scenario 2: Showing the family photograph album to your offspring.

DEFLATE response: “Your dad used to be a good-looking man.”

BOOST response: “Your dad’s still a good-looking man.”

OK, the hair might be greyer, the body less toned, but the first response might as well scream “useless has-been”. Being told that you were once good-looking, but no longer are, is more damaging to the tender ego of the male than accepting that one has always been battered with the ugly stick. Alternatively, we vanity-bloated men love to believe we are still attractive to the female form, albeit in a more sophisticated way. The boost response will typically lead to a puffing up of the male plumage, involving chest expansion, an erect back and a bounce in the stride.

Scenario 3: Man flirting with women at a party.

DEFLATE response: “You sad, old bastard; still thinking you’ve got a chance with women almost half your age.”

BOOST response: “I’ll have to keep an eye on you with all these young women sniffing around.”

Ladies, we know that the chances of women lusting after blokes two decades their senior are as likely as their developing an aversion for chocolate. But men like to delude themselves that at least one or two fillies within the vicinity just might be thinking, “wow, that man is triggering spasms in my lady bits.” Deny us this fantasy and we’d stop showering and never change our underwear.    

Scenario 4: Man undressing in aroused state in anticipation of rumpy-pumpy, and having just unleashed his front-room furniture.

DEFLATE response: “Ah, how cute!”

BOOST response:  “Be gentle with me.”

Men are obsessed with the size of their willies, and subject them to frequent inspections in front of the mirror (or is that just me?). Things described as cute tend to be small, so the deflate comment will activate the man’s doubts about the adequacy of his nadger, inevitably impairing his sexual performance. In contrast, the boost response implies that his weapon is at risk of causing damage, thereby promoting virility and confidence in his ability to satisfy.

Scenario 5:  During the act of love-making

BOOST response: Gasps of orgasmic pleasure (manufactured or otherwise).

DEFLATE response: “Are you in yet?”

No commentary necessary.   

So there you have it, the definitive guide to how men tick. Ladies, the power is with you; use it wisely.

*** Personal note: Due to my father’s illness, over the last few weeks I’ve not maintained my usual level of activity in the blogosphere. At the time of writing, my father seems to be improving and, tomorrow, I set off on a 15-night Scandinavian cruise (yippee!). So I expect my usual input to blogging will resume from around the middle of June.

    

Things Mrs Jones would not have said 30 years ago

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Relationships evolve over time. Thirty-three years ago, the future Mrs Jones and I met in a social club at the hospital where we both worked. Like any couple in the early stages of the mating ritual, we were each on our best behaviour: no farting in front of each other; swearing restricted to exclamations; and bowel references were no more graphic than the occasional mention of an ‘upset stomach’.

Nowadays we are less inhibited. I share the following scenarios as illustration:

1. Mrs Jones returns home from work and enters the living room where I’m tip-tapping away on my laptop. My attention is drawn to the twitching of her nostrils. She looks directly at me, accusingly, and asks, ‘Have you shit?’

2. Together on the settee, watching television.

‘I wish you’d stop fidgeting’ I say.

‘I can’t’ she says.

‘Why, what’s the problem?’

‘My arse is stinging like a wasp with a cob on.’

But last week, while we were sitting at the table eating our evening meal, Mrs Jones made a comment that indicated to me how three decades of co-habitation had transformed the nature of our relationship. The rhythmic clicking of stainless steel utensils on ceramic plates, mixed with the occasional slurping of wine, were interrupted by the never-to-be-forgotten comment:

‘Move the condiments nearer to me; my tits keep flopping in my Bolognese sauce!’  

  

The advantages of being a menopausal male

My status in the blogosphere must be rising! Today, I'm thrilled to announce that I am guesting over at Menopausal Mother, one of the many rib-ticklingly funny homes for the work of the multi-talented Marcia Kester Doyle.

Marcia is my blogging soul-mate who hilariously captures the essence of the ageing process from a female perspective - or as she describes it, 'The good, the bad and the ugly side of menopausal mayhem'. Marcia is also a staff writer at In The Powder Room and a contributing author to What The Flicka. She wins awards for fun, her blog recently beating all-comers to win the Top Hilariously Funny Blog VoiceBoks 2014. Her work has also been featured on numerous sites, including: Scary Mommy; Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop; Suburbia Interrupted; Mamapedia, Midlife Boulevard and Aiming Low. If you are not familiar with her work, I urge you to drop in on one of her blogs and see for yourself.

My guest post is highlighting the (albeit few) advantages of being 55. Please come over and tell me what you think. The link is:

http://www.menopausalmom.com/2014/04/wacky-wednesday-writers-guest-post-by.html

It's floppy!

For the first time in my blogging career, I'm thrilled to announce that I've been asked to guest-post. (I know, some of you guys do it every other week, but this is virgin territory for me).

The invite has come from a giant of the blogging world, non other than Starr Bryson at The Insomniacs Dream. The multi-talented Starr is wonderfully versatile and can write on any topic from humor to erotica to serious stuff; she can inform, arouse, offend or tickle, depending upon which mood she is in. So pop over there and read her stuff on http://www.theinsomniacsdream.com/ You will not be disappointed.

My guest post recounts a tale from when I worked as a sex therapist - now that surprised you, didn't it - many years ago in the pre-Viagra days. Please pop over (via the link below) and give it some attention and comment. Otherwise, Starr will not be happy and, quite frankly, I'm scared of her!


Ta

http://www.theinsomniacsdream.com/2014/03/writers-retreat-its-floppy.html

A ball-ache at 48

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As I zipped up my trousers, my physician peeled off his latex gloves. ‘In light of your age, I’ll refer you to urology for tests’ he said. We can’t be too careful.’

It was 2006, and my 48-year-old right testicle had begun to ache several weeks earlier while watching a TV program about how men are prone to neglect their health, particularly if the problem relates to their dangly bits. I clung to benign explanations for the pain: perhaps my budgie-smugglers were too tight, or maybe I had unknowingly crushed the sensitive orb when I crossed my legs?

When the pain persisted, my hypochondriacal curiosity prompted me to enter ‘testicular cancer’ into the search engine. Reading the symptoms – a lump in part of one testicle, a dull ache, or a heavy scrotum – triggered several days of cupping, prodding and mirror-gazing that only aggravated my pain. I relented and visited my doctor who in turn was now propelling me towards the specialist.     

Three weeks later I am sitting in the urology waiting room at the local hospital, fearing the worst, and visualizing malignant cells multiplying and stomping, jackbooted, into the neighbouring testicular tissue like the Nazi invasion of Poland.

‘Mr. Jones, please?’

I turn to see an attractive young woman in a white coat smiling, and beckoning me to follow her. She has sallow skin and ebony hair, tied back in a bob. I follow her like a faithful puppy-dog to the consulting room, feeling a rising sense of unease in anticipation of my indecent exposure.

Once inside, after exploring the history of my problem, she rises from her chair, moves a couple of yards away from me, motions me to also stand, and asks me to let her ‘have a look’. I lower my denims and briefs to allow the front-room furniture to swing fee. Standing there exposed from waist to knee, I fidget, not knowing where to put my hands. She peers at my genitalia, ‘to check for symmetry’ – apparently, observing whether my right ball is hovering at a different altitude to the other. Disturbingly, as she scrutinizes, she purses her lips and tilts her head. I conjure up lusty thoughts to try and inflate the pipe-work a bit but, alas, all in vain; in the cold consulting room my meat and veg resemble Bob Cratchit’s turkey, the last one in the shop.   

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While I remain standing, she approaches, squats before me and digs her finger into the suspect testicle.

‘Does that hurt?’ she asks.

I yelp, providing her with an answer. She continues the examination by manipulating each ball between her thumb and forefinger, and cupping each in the palm of her hand (presumably checking for the diagnostic heaviness – if not, I’d been the victim of sexual assault). After returning to her full height she instructs me to lie on the bed. Any embryonic ember of sexual excitement is immediately quenched by the comic image in my head of my shuffling across the room, hairy arse on view, trousers around knees, like a floundering contestant in a sack race.

A male colleague with cold hands joins us and more prodding ensues. At the end of the examination I’m told that my testicles feel ‘totally normal’ but, in light of my age, they will arrange for me to return to hospital for an ultra scan ‘just to be on the safe side.’

Two weeks on, I am laying on a bed in the X-Ray Department, ubiquitous blue gown raised to my hips, while a black man, with hands the size of pit shovels, moves a wand-like object three inches from my gonads as if searching for precious metal. His verdict: ‘apart from a slight, non-significant aberration in the right testicle, they appear perfectly normal.’ He also tells me that the pain is probably due to ‘post-vasectomy pain syndrome,’ a discomfort experienced by one-in-three men years after the operation – a fact denied to me when I had the snip a decade earlier.  

.

‘If this was your testicle, would you choose to undergo any further investigation?’ I asked.

‘No,’ the radiographer replied, ‘I’d leave it well alone.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said while rising from the bed, thoroughly reassured.

  

The day they arrested my dad

Last Saturday I attended a football (soccer) match with my 82-year-old father. I remain unsure as to the trigger – maybe a gesture or a comment –but while sitting together in the main stand, I relived an incident from almost half a century ago when my gentle, fair-minded dad evoked the wrath of the local police force.  

On a Saturday afternoon forty-seven years ago, the rain pummelled the window pane as I perched on the sill waiting for my dad’s return from work. The previous evening he had suggested we attend a football game and now, barely an hour prior to kick-off, he had yet to arrive.

My dad laboured all week in the engineering factory at the end of our road. To boost his take-home pay, he would often work Saturday mornings as well so as to benefit from the time-and-a-half hourly pay rate. When he clocked off at 12 noon he and his work mates would head for the Rose-and-Crown pub to imbibe a ‘bit of throat lubricant’. As I loitered at the window at 2.00 pm on this watery Saturday afternoon, I visualised him standing at the bar, tankard in hand, oblivious to his commitment to escort his 8-year-old son to the football.

His invite to attend a game together had startled me. Burnley, the team we (and several generations of Jones) supported were playing 250 miles away on the south coast, so we wouldn’t entertain travelling on such a pilgrimage. It would have to be a visit to our local (and bitterest) rival Blackburn Rovers. Nor did I usually go to the football with my dad, my companions being either my older brother or my uncle. Maybe my dad’s invitation had been fuelled by guilt at his perceived failure to fulfil his fatherly duties.

At 2.15 a car pulled up outside; my dad had persuaded a work mate to drop us at the ground. Climbing into the back seat of the Ford Corsair, I caught a whiff of alcohol, thereby confirming my earlier hunch of their pre-match stop at the Rose-and-Crown. As we queued to enter the ground of our loathed adversary, torrential rain lashed into our faces. My dad handed over his hard-earned cash at the turnstile and we found our seats in the stand. The pitch itself, clad in a collage of water-pools of various shapes and sizes, appeared unplayable. Yet at 3.00 pm the referee blew his whistle to start the proceedings. At 3.03 pm he blew it again to abandon the game due to the water-logged pitch.

My dad, with me clinging to his arm, strode immediately to the ticket office to seek a refund of his money only to be informed that, as the match had started, no reimbursement would be given. An agitated crowd gathered outside the ticket office, demanding that the directors of the club leave their plush boardroom and explain why they can’t have their money back.

My father is a peaceful man, but on that day he transformed. Maybe due to alcohol- powered disinhibition. Or the frustration of a premature abortion of a rare football trip with his son. Or the fact that heinous Blackburn was responsible for the gross injustice. Whatever the reason, maybe a combination of them all, my dad (together with his clinging 8-year-old son) gravitated to the front of the baying mob.

 A few minutes later the police arrived. ‘Move along now sir, you’re causing an obstruction’

‘I’m going nowhere until I get my money back’ said my dad.

The officer put a guiding arm on my dad’s shoulder. ‘Come, come now; you don’t want to set your lad a bad example, do you?’

Patronising comments now an additional factor in the already incendiary mix, dad shoved the policeman away. The crowd, some yards further back, cheered at his defiance, thereby providing further encouragement to continue with what was, by now, a one man protest.

The police superintendent appeared. ‘Move on or you will be arrested.’

My dad leaned in towards the superintendent, wagged a finger at the stripes on his uniform and said, ‘Just because you’ve got that bird crap on your shoulder doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.’  

But it did. The police yanked my dad (together with me, his appendage) into the back of the police car. He avoided a night in the cells (probably due to the presence of a minor) but received a fine of £10 for ‘disturbing the peace’.

On the bus journey home, my father pleaded with me not to tell my mother (who would have, no doubt, castrated him for his hooliganism). A loyal son, I didn’t grass him up; well, at least not until a decade later!  And now, almost fifty years on, I’m announcing his aberration to the world.