Fact of the day
July 12, 2006 | 12:00am
Running 500-plus days now, an online magazine for men – Askmen.com – has been publishing daily factoids for its male readers. This one sprung out at me: One in three male motorists pick their nose while driving.
A third of the male population is a staggering number – that’s a whole lot of noses being picked along the highways of the world! But I am not about to argue with fact. I know that a lot of men think themselves as capable of incomparable poise, especially behind a wheel with German initials on it, and when there is a woman to his right, wearing a little black dress. But when they stare at the road ahead for too long, their minds wander; and when their minds wander, their fingers go for the nearest available hole. They don’t know what they are doing until it’s too late. A man I caught with his finger in his nostril was shaken from his stupor when I asked, "Did you get it?"
So now I know that one in three men do that. But I don’t think this little statistic is meant to enrich the male IQ (or mine); what I think it offers a man is consolation, so that every time he finds his fingers probing his skull while stopped at a red light, he knows he’s not alone.
Fact for the day is not always about men directly, but about things that are apparently of interest to them, like Fact No. 514: There is a six-foot-high stone monument dedicated to Popeye in Crystal City, Texas; Fact No. 525: It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to walk around the Pentagon once; Fact No. 517: If you place a small amount of liquor on a scorpion, it’ll instantly go mad and sting itself to death; and Fact no. 528: The "G" in g-string stands for "groin." There are also statistics that somehow implicate men, like Fact No. 516: There are more Ford F-series trucks in the world than there are Australians. You know who buy these Ford trucks and why. Fact No. 327 says: In Sparta during the 4th century, men over 20 were required by law to eat two pounds of meat a day. It was supposed to make them brave. This is pure nostalgia. The only place two pounds of meat can bring a man to these days is the operating table, for a heart bypass. The modern man drives a Ford truck for bravery, an especially gutsy thing to do in these days of inflated gas prices, and when a man’s badge of courage is the credit card he charges his Shell Velocity to.
Speaking of Shell, let me digress a bit by telling you that my nephew who works for this company (his name: Jen’s Husband) treated us to a night of Sitti at the Tavern in Greenbelt last week. I had been invited previously by my Saturday Group buddy Bads Convocar to listen to Sitti but hadn’t had the chance to take him up on his offer. Jen’s Husband and Bads had told me that Sitti plays bossa nova, and so I was expecting a low but full-bodied voice like Astrud Gilberto or Lisa Ono’s. Sitti’s voice is several pitches higher, and when she trills her notes, the sound she makes is a mix of wild bird and chipmunk – the kind of sound that one might hear in some rainforest: it gets your attention and makes you forget your girlfriend’s name. But the best thing I like about her (she is 22, and a graduate of Business Economics in UP) is the look on her face when she sings. It’s as if she knows something funny, and she’s not telling. My guess is, she knows that her alluring hip-swing and shimmy does wonders to the economics of her (singing) business, and (therefore?) men are funny. But that’s just a guess. What was more mesmerizing to me was that Jen’s Husband paid for my Tequila Rose and calamari, and for that I’m wildly grateful.
But back to Askmen.com. It seems to be an earnest enterprise dedicated to giving men information on all that they need to know. There are the usual sections, like "Power and Money," "Sexuality," "The Indianapolis Grand Prix Guide," "The 99 Most Desirable Women," even a "Men’s Horoscope." Some articles are really doozies: "Disgusting Foods You Should Eat"; "How to Get Rid of Houseguests"; and "How to Hypnotize Someone." And there is a special section called "Outside Content," which seems to be the male counterpart of soul and spirit stuff on Oprah.com. Recent articles include "How Zombies Work"; "How Exorcism Works"; "How Brain Death Works." I can imagine how brain death might happen, but I don’t see how brain death might work. One of these days I might actually read those articles.
The most hilarious part of the whole magazine is Doctor Love, who answers love and sexuality questions sent in by readers. Doctor Love has also written a book called The System, which he is now selling online via Askmen.com for $99. A quickie blurb says it all: How many times have you taken a woman out three times, spent well over $100, and now she doesn’t even remember your name? With my coaching program, this will become a thing of the past. My program saves you time and money – and it protects your heart. This one-time investment in your happiness literally pays for itself. So what have you got to win?
What have you got to win, indeed.
On to more facts – No. 435: Mouse sex only lasts five seconds. It’s curious what this little rodent factoid is doing in a men’s magazine. Are they saying, as Steinbeck did, that this is true of mice and men? Or do the writers and readers of Askmen.com think it important that a man knows how many crucial seconds separate him from a mouse? Well, let the men answer that. What I know for sure – and this I also got from their archive of daily facts – is that (Fact No. 547) 40 percent of women have hurled footwear at a man. I do not know if I would throw a shoe at a man, but I sure as hell would at a mouse, if I found one in my bedroom.
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