Irrelevant Cheetah

To be honest, I don’t know how polygamists do it. It certainly is a unique experience to be cohabitating with two women. Once again I was sucked into an estrogen-soaked conversation as my wife and sister-in-law discussed the intimate details of their respective C-sections.

Now, I was there at my wife’s side when my son was born, so it’s not totally new to me. Nor was it horribly disgusting, although it was a little disturbing to see the doctor use a crowbar to pry open my wife’s stomach while the attending nurse was using the medical equivalent of a Shop-Vac to suck all of the amniotic fluid out of the way. I wasn’t even particularly bothered by my SIL’s relating that they literally placed her internal organs on her stomach to “get them out of the way.”

It was when they began to discuss “leakage” after the birthing process that I started struggling for air. I realize that human lactation is a natural part of giving birth. I even realize that human breast milk is a healthy, vitamin-filled nutritious food for babies.
What I didn’t realize is that it can also be used as a weapon. I couldn’t help but overhear (and believe me, I tried) that my SIL had actually squirted her husband in the eye during an argument. I think his reaction was perfectly reasonable – he screamed like a girl and dropped to the floor, grabbing uselessly for a towel.

So it hit me later that while the TSA spends its time confiscating all sorts of liquids from carry-on luggage, including (ironically enough) baby formula, they are missing the mother lode of weaponry. Any women who have given birth recently are potential time bombs, waiting to go off. I can’t speak for all men here, but if I were piloting a plane and was threatened with a shot of breast milk to the eye straight from the source, I think that woman would be flying the plane within moments.

Please consider this my patriotic duty – warning the government about possible threats to airline travel that they may have overlooked. Thanks are not necessary. I just want to keep everyone safe.

There are moments during the course of a relationship in which a man is asked questions that put his systems on high alert and send the red alert klaxons echoing through the command post that is his brain, sending him scurrying out of the room with his tail tucked between his legs and looking for a place to hide. Oddly enough, this was not one of them.

My wife and I were watching a program about the animals that had preceded the dinosaurs. You don’t hear much about those critters in school. If I were to draw a timeline of history based on what I learned in school, it would be delineated thus:

Planet Earth forms

Primitive bacteria spontaneously arrive

Plants arrive

Dinosaurs arrive

Dinosaurs die, mammals take over

Rise of Man

Obviously, there’s a lot of blanks to fill in. You never hear about the giant arthropods of the Silurian Period, for example. These were scorpions about eight feet long that could live both on land and in water. Now there’s a villain to put into a horror movie, or a science fiction flick.

Anyhow, the Discovery channel put out a show called “Before the Dinosaurs,” about all these weird animals. We were enthralled by the mating rituals of some pre-reptile amphibian/fish, and my wife said, “I don’t know how we evolved from those things. If we were those things once, would you find me attractive?”

For some reason, almost immediately after she asked the question, her hand went to her forehead, and she began muttering to herself, “Why did I go there? Why? Why?”

I, of course, took no time to answer. “Of course, dear. I’d be the one saying ‘Woo-hoo, baby! Show me that tail!’” This was followed by more head-shaking and forehead-rubbing, so I continued. “Come on, baby! Let me see that leg! Goes all the way from your hip to the ground, doesn’t it? Check out my dorsal spikes! Seen any like that lately?”

As an atheist, I’m all about evolution. I don’t think we were created from clay, and I’m not going for the whole “intelligent design” thing, either. But she’s got a point, I think. I’m not sure what the male found attractive back in those days. Perhaps it was the tail. Maybe it was the leg. Maybe it was just the instinct to mate that brought them together.

On the other hand, do you think the female fish/amphibian ever asked her mate, “Is my tail fat?” Do you think he ran and hid when he heard that?