Well Done

"Hey honey, I bought us a steak."

It's almost Memorial Day, it's been warm, the grass on the hill has turned green, the breeze is gentle, the smell of lilac is wafting past our noses, and she bought us a steak. Assuming this lovely creature would stoop to having an agenda, what might that mean? I think I've already made it clear we mostly eat out. What does it mean that  she bought US a steak?

And then I saw it, sitting there in it's black and silver steely profile on the deck.  It's a newer model with cutting board extensions on both sides. I don't know why it took me so long to catch on.

"Oh, you want to barbecue."

"Duh," she says.

I try very hard to stay away from sexist thoughts or remarks. It's just a healthy way to live. But there is one area of the male, female division of labor that hasn't budged in all of human history. When a woman says, "Let's barbecue, she really means "let's have YOU barbecue." I've been around a while and I don't know a woman who barbecues. I don't know a woman who has ever fired one of those suckers up. I don't know a woman who has put on one of those silly apron, hat outfits. I don't know a woman who has tossed the raw meat on to the grate. I know no woman who has taken the doneness orders, sprinkled water on the fire after the dripping grease threatens to set off a conflagration. That's a man's job.

Of course the cleverer gender is not wholly to blame. For some of us it's our last vestige of control, of power, of dominance over the smarter sex. Some, like my friend Perry Drake, claim they just like it. Perry claims to barbecue every single day of the summer. Personally I get tired of the taste of burnt.

But we're just skimming the surface here. I think this male barbecueing issue goes to the very core of our evolutionary development. When I get near the ocean I feel it pulling me in, taking me back to my genesis, back to my amoebic roots. There I feel a sense of oneness with all life. Well sort of, maybe.

 Anyway I think there is a part of our evolutionary development I missed out on.

There we were at Oldavai Gorge, knocking some obsidian around to shape it into nasty weapons. A bunch of the guys get together and decide to go huntin' for some Mastadon.  One of the ladies says, "Me go too." 

"No, you not. Stay here, find wood, breast feed, clean cave. If not, me hit with club, grab hair anddrag to bed."

It was not a proud time in our history men. Sure we came back, fired up the barby and tossed on the Mastadon, and fed the ladies. But it's my contention those ladies decided then and there they were going to get revenge.  I think they're there, don't you?

We can't drag them by the hair anymore, we can't talk mean to them, we hire Merry Maids to help them clean the cave, breastfeeding is optional, but guess what we're still doing? Yep, all the guys get together in the fall to throw spears at meat so we can drag it home to surburban caves, carve it up into little pieces, light the fire, get the doneness orders, and whoa, did they get to us. WE clean up the mess.

I'm tellin' you guys we gotta fight back. If she says, "I bought us a steak?" Well we just smile at her and say, "sorry the barby is on the fritz. We're going out!"

That ought to get em', uh?