Have you heard the one about the traveling salesman and the missionaries?

I don’t know whether it’s God, Allah, Jehovah, Gaia the Earth Mother, or just the universe in general, but I do know that somebody up there has a twisted sense of humor. Why else would innocent, well-meaning people with incompatible objectives be set upon colliding trajectories, if not for the sadistic amusement of a bored deity who just likes to watch?


Case in point: I was flying home from a work meeting in Chicago this week, exhausted and overtired, and as I waited to board my plane, I noticed a small group of young men and women, all of them about 18 or 19 years old, overdressed, and being shepherded around by a couple of older women. They were clearly part of some organized group, probably religious, and all of them looked excited and a bit overwhelmed for their impending travel.

Shortly after the group sat down to wait for their flight, another young man approached them. He seemed a little older and more experienced than they were, but not by much. I imagined him as a salesman of some kind, maybe 23 or 24 years old, new to his job, but clearly not anxious about flying. He caught my attention because of his amateurish, peacock-like strutting, obviously meant to gain the attention of two of the prettier girls within the group. But these girls were too excited about their impending trip to notice much else, even as he sat down right next to them.

These were beautiful young women, in an innocent, girl-next-door kind of way, and seemingly oblivious to his machinations. And the young man seemed far too inexperienced to realize he would have no chance with them. But as the dramedy began to unfold, I put down the Ian Fleming novel I’d been reading. This was much better.

It turned out that these girls were part of a Mormon Mission bound for Hong Kong. Their obvious anxiety about flying made me doubt they’d ever left Chicago before, but here they were, ready to start saving souls in the Far East. And what better feather for them than to have one in the bag before the plane had even taken off? And this boy was only too happy to listen to everything they had to say.

“Why sure, I’d love to see your copy of the Book of Mormon. Oh, you don’t have a spare? Well, let me give you my address so you can send me one. Here’s my phone number, too. Will you be stopping over in the San Francisco area? How long is your layover? Maybe you’d like me to show you around?”

These girls wanted nothing more than to save a gentile’s soul, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep with one, or possibly two pretty girls. But neither side was going to get their wish, not through any fault of their own. It’s just that life is like that sometimes.

My plane boarded before theirs, so I never heard the end of the affair, or which side tired first. The optimist in me would like to imagine they all got their happy endings. But life is compromise. Perhaps those girls are in Hong Kong now, doing good works for their church. And that boy has learned that the missionary position rarely involves real missionaries.

"Do these pants look too small on me?"

My wife asked me this during a recent weekend string of errands that (unknown to me, beforehand) included a stop at the local Anne Taylor.

It's a deceptively difficult question, since the correct response is so obvious:

"No, Honey, you look amazing"

Knowing what to say is easy. The hard part is figuring out how long to pretend to think about it before saying it. Answering too quickly sounds condescending, dismissive, and will surely land you in trouble. But answering too slowly is worse. She'll assume you really do think she looks fat, and that you're struggling to find a diplomatic response. In which case you can forget about sex afterwards, which is the only reason straight men ever go shopping with their wives/girlfriends. Unless it’s for a new Weber barbecue at The Home Depot, but how often does that happen?

Personally, I prefer the tactic of deflection:

"Hmm… I don’t know. How do they look to you?"

This has the virtue of lacking any substantive evidence that might be held against me, yet still sounds sensitive and engaged. Women dig sensitive men, so it’s important to know how to fake it convincingly.

Better still is to arrange a date for her to go shopping with her friends. Buy her a gift card for a massage/manicure, arrange lunch for her with her girlfriends, and then off to Anne Taylor or whatever Godforsaken place they want.

You won’t have to be there, AND you’ll still be building sex creds.

Win and Win. Probably the best of all possible worlds, at least until the corporate merger between Anne Taylor and Home Depot.

Baby needs a new set of clothes

My daughter turned ten months old this week.  Our first child.  Parenthood at 40 is a lot more work and a lot less sleep than I imagined, but it's so worth it.  Sure, we could have opted for the 60 inch HDTV and the condo in Cabo, but no tv will look at you with a big smile and say, "I love you, Daddy".  Not without pay-per-view, anyway.

Being an older firsttime parent does have its advantages, though.  Friends and family were eager to give us their outgrown, but perfectly good baby gear:  clothes, cribs, carseats, binkies, boppies, breastpumps, we have it all.  But the strange thing about baby clothes for girls is that they're mostly always pink.  Pink dresses, pink pajamas, pink shoes, pink socks, pink, pink, pink. 

Now don’t get me wrong…I’m very grateful for their overwhelming generosity. But somehow I hoped my daughter's indoctrination into societal gender roles wouldn’t have to begin from day 1.

The Rules:
Boys wear blue. Girls wear pink.

Boys play with trucks. Girls play with dolls.

Boys are aggressive. Girls are passive.

Boys are rational. Girls are emotional.

I don’t think so. I want my daughter to wear any color, play any game, pursue any interest, and be whoever she wants to be, regardless of tradition.

Daddy's little rebel.

Just so long as she does all her chores, gets a 4.0 GPA, plays varsity tennis and basketball, makes editor of the school paper, first chair in marching band, wins student body president, and never drinks or goes out on dates until she’s 21.