Women.
Trying to figure them out is very similar to the process of sending a man to Mars: Sooner or later, it will happen, but probably not without the support of a billion-dollar research program staffed by hundreds of Ivy League scientists and a monkey (preferably a monkey named Choo-Choo Harland) who has been trained in sign language.
Yes, I have finally come to the conclusion that if men truly want to understand women, NASA is going to have to get involved.
I, on the other hand, am removing myself from the equation because I've realized I have no hope.
I started to realize this last week, when I detected a certain chain of events that seemed to occur every time I wanted to leave a grocery store.
I would be standing in line, fidgeting, hoping my Preparation H would scan without a price check, when I would happen to catch a glance of a Cosmopolitan magazine. I would find myself thinking, "Wow. What an attractive lady they have on the cover of that magazine.
"Wait a second, I thought that was how they sold magazines to men. Why would a woman want to see a beautiful woman on a woman's magazine?"
And then I would grab a Three Musketeers and smack myself in the face until I thought about something else.
This may sound strange to you, but if I were to actually allow my mind to follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion, I would end up with: "In fact, if 'Cosmopolitan' and '101 Ways To Please Him In Bed' weren't emblazoned strategically around the hot woman, I would probably think this was a men's magazine - and I would probably buy it.
"Plus, how can they possibly come up with 101 brand new sex tips? They've been doing that every month for at least 10 years! That's got to be more than 12,000 sex tips! And how many of those must not be working, if they have to come up with 101 more every single month?"
If I allowed this thought process, my brain would hemorrhage, and I would start to get nosebleeds. So I instead choose to beat myself with candy as a deterrent.
Once I pinned this pattern down, a lot of unanswered questions started to become clear - namely: "What happened to your face?" Maybe trying so hard to understand the opposite sex was just ending up in creating more barriers. But I had to know for sure, and I had to do something drastic to find out.
I had to watch the season premier of Oprah.
For those of you who don't know - guys - Oprah Winfrey has had her sometimes-pudgy hands on the crown of the estrogen empire for the last 20 years.
To women of all ages, she has embodied the qualities of the modern woman in the spirit of sisterhood, independence and a bunch of other crap I stole from sorority T-shirts during bid week.
If I could watch her season premier without analyzing it, maybe some of those barriers would start to come down.
The first 20 minutes were a breeze - it was just a bunch of women screaming because Oprah showed up. Apparently, they didn't see it coming.
Then Jennifer Aniston came out, and things were looking up for about three seconds. After those three seconds, Jennifer Aniston disappeared so Oprah could showcase her new puppies for the next half hour.
I know women like puppies. Men like puppies, too. But I thought we all liked Jennifer Aniston more. Puppies have never been on Cosmo. Jennifer Aniston is on it every other month.
Shouldn't Oprah, of all people, know this?
Next thing I know, I'm changing the channel and reaching for a Three Musketeers. Here's to putting a man on Mars.
Write to Lance at
lancealotv@yahoo.com
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