Molly and Dollop: Conversations with the Master

Lorena, How Could You?

MOLLY:

I am going to my sushi class this afternoon.  You said I should know about a famous Master Cutter.

DOLLOP:

Lorena Bobbitt was a normal lady with no aspirations for the limelight.  One day fate served her an opportunity and her extreme talent saw the light.  Was it something her husband said?  Anyway, he was asleep and she took a knife from the kitchen --- it happened to be one of the better Santoku’s - and sliced off his Naughty Bit, completely.

Only in retrospect can we appreciate the level of difficulty and the challenging circumstances of this feat.  The man was asleep, she was having a fit, and at the same time, her steady hand wielded the Dojo 6 Santoku Chef’s Slicing Knife to the most fragile of organic protrusions in a rather clumsy reclining position.   Admirers debate whether there was any removal of clothing involved.  It was a superbly clean cut.

The Bit was put in her pocket as she was overwhelmed by the enormity of Fate bringing her this Extreme Opportunity, which eventually made her famous.  Somehow – we can only speculate – she charged out the door, got in her car, and drove into the night.  It was a dark and starry night.  At a certain stretch – near Dick Done Road and Willey Street -- she remembered the Bit in her pocket and pulled it out.  It must have seemed odd – a Piece of John her husband right there, disembodied.  Her fit was still in high gear, and she cast the Bit into the night.  The Angels of Mercy to Men must have been working late that night, because they softened the fall of the Bit into a patch of grass. 

Now the neighborhood of that patch of grass was home to a pack of cats, and they are most alert at night, having no people to beg from and distract them from a cat’s real life.  (Their “day job” is scavenging for little delectable creatures at night.)  They found the Bit.  You would think:  “Aha.  Look at this.  Fell right from Heaven, or Mars.  Let’s Party tonight!”  I don’t know if you are aware of how many hours a cat can spend batting a little creature around, chasing it, tossing it, mouthing it, letting it go, catching it, running it across the yard, batting it again, tossing it again.  But.  You might have heard about the pet obesity epidemic in this country.  These were fat cats, and they had just eaten.  Their kind owners had just cooked up some Philly cheese steak and Buffalo wings, and boy, was that good.  One of them looked at the Bit and said, “I am not touching it until somebody gets me my Bad Byron’s Cajun Butt Rub Fire Barbeque Sauce.”  Another one took a sniff and said, “It smells fishy and I don’t do fish.”  Then they keeled over, their blood sugar just flooding after the delay of digesting rich imperial crab, fried onion rings, albacore tuna surprise, and the insides of a double-cheese and sausage calzone. 

When an army of police,  volunteers from late-night sports bars, and the FRT (Fast Response Team) – came upon the scene, it was not hard to locate the Bit, in the early dawn.  Several cats were snoozing with their noses almost on it, taking a lick in their sleep just to remember where it was in case hard times and hunger fell upon them before morning.

The Bit was rescued, and rinsed.  Meanwhile, John was rescued and rinsed too.  Lorena’s operation was so precise that doctors were called in to admire the execution.  It was not hard to stitch back the Bit to a very acceptable angle, except for a tiny notch underneath where one of the cats had put a tooth to it by accident.  In fact, John was so proud of it that he showed it off in movies later, knowing that a lot of people wanted to see his once-decapitated thing.  (Nobody had ever paid it much attention before.)

In fact, the Borat Bureau of Circumcisions and Sustainable Organics invited him to visit so that they could document how a “worst case scenario” could be covered up.  He really enjoyed the attention and insisted that his face appear in any pictures, but they photoshopped those later.

A friend of mine once advised someone thinking about divorce:  get a really good knife.  And learn to make mean spaghetti.  It was a good thing Lorena knew her knives.   As any guy will tell you, anything is possible if you have the right tool.

Certain Ladies, Let the Breeding Begin!

MOLLY:

I heard that the U.S. population just reached 300 million.  Is that enough people?

DOLLOP:

Well, there are enough people and there are enough of the Right people.   There are countries that are feeling barren, even though immigrants are loading onto boats as we speak.  And the Chinese are offering to export baby girls.

After centuries of making sure that women do not get uppity and have too much fun, or make any serious money, we have noticed that recently they just stopped having enough babies.  “Enough babies” means a population replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.   Now, in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece, the rate (in 2004) is down around 1.3.  Germany is at 1.37.  The French who are trying hard for “le baby boom” are up to 1.90.

The number of women choosing to be child-free in the U.S. is up to 44%.

Germany is way behind on production.   30% of all women in 2005 childless, and the rate for recent graduates is 40%.

We might ask “What are those women DOING??”  They are not having enough babies.  Are they eating Godivas, watching Oprah, reading Nora Roberts, and catching the sales at Target? 

The Breeding Board offered some insight.

Women are delaying marriage and baby-making.  Newsweek warned them in 1996 that if they did not get married in their 20’s they were “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than ever get married.  Did the women listen?   Noooooo.  They would rather get killed by a terrorist, it seems.

More women are waiting to “opt in” for marriage as late as their 40’s.  And many more are “opting out” forever.  More than 42% of women stay single.  Nearly 60% of women are employed now, and who wanted that to happen?  Why the work, ladies?

Now gay couples are arriving on the scene and they want to get married and have children.  They are about 2% of all households.  Still, we want to make it hard for them.   We want to stone their houses and slash their tires if they reveal their secret wish to make a lovely home and family for themselves.   Did I mention the issue is the “Right people” having the babies?

Focus groups all over the world are checking this out.  In the U.S., one woman pointed out that it costs a middle-class family about $150,000 to raise a child, which is over $8,000 a year, and the tax exemption is $3000 a year.   If you are earning the average income in the U.S. of about $43,000 a year, that extra child will cost about 12% of your earnings (if you treat it well…).  Say you have TWO children.  You need a bigger house and a reliable car, etc, etc.  Is the bigger house close to work?  Because the extra 100 hours a week in services to the family cuts into commute time.

Now, can you use an extra 100 hours a week in your life?   Hmmmm?

Yes, the Breeding Board admits, there are sacrifices to be made.  Women are traditionally selfless, however, and we can count on some of that.  Stop the yada yada about time off from work for family, affordable child care, help with the housework, a little respect.  How to get women to breed?  A 12-step program.

1. They get free tickets to the Breeding Farm Spa, a one-week “relax” session, featuring music by Enya.
2. They get to pick either a) premium sperm from a very large full-color catalog of desirable men wearing very little, b) a vacation with a Bachelor selected from an international roster, all expenses paid, or c) an arranged marriage.
3. A generous gift card to Victoria’s Secret.
4. Five years of time off from work with tickets to kiddie play groups, scrapbook parties, birthday party arrangers, finicky-child caterers, and parenting consultants.
5. Two years’ job training during which certified free child care is provided.
6. Ten hours a week free nanny services.
7. Annual appreciative “mom of the year” videos posted on public web sites.
8. Week-long couples-only get-aways for mom and her guy or gal.
9. Nutritious free lunches at school for the tykes.
10. Hunky personal trainer of preferred sexual orientation for those “rehab” years.
11. A little liposuction allowance.
12. Executive makeover for that transition back to the world of work, power, and money.

The French are in a race to out-breed other European countries and they are succeeding.  They have special incentives for third children.  For one thing, they continue to allow for extra long lunches.

Key words for this topic are:  Extinction.  Depopulation.  Old and Shrinking Consumer Markets.  Collapse.  Desperate.  Nobody to Work the Field.  Must Welcome Immigrants.

Message to the Men in Charge:  Be.  Nice. To. Women.

Mrs. Mantis, Please Don’t Bite My Head Off!

MOLLY:

I heard there is an expression about “the kiss of death.”  Is there really a Kiss of Death?

DOLLOP:

If you are a praying mantis, there is.  Female manti have completely lost their sense of humor and ability to flirt.  If a male mantis gives them just one kiss, they bite his head off, and if they are the slightest hungry, they eat the rest of him, except for the wings, which everybody knows are too fatty.  You’ll notice that female praying manti are very tall and skinny.  You don’t see any with love handles and big bums.  Of course sometimes they cannot resist nibbling a little on the wings.

When the boys are growing into manhood, instead of a bar mitzvah, they go to “kissing boot camp.”  They learn the facts of life:  your shot at a Kiss could be your last.  In fact their training in courtship takes a page or several from martial arts:  how to approach from behind, quietly; how to jump; how to pucker so that the female thinks you are just saying “hi;” how to keep your exit route open and watch for those long skinny legs that you can trip on, if you need to get away fast.  They say that Tai Chi is the basis for many of the moves, as they are slow and graceful. 

They practice by jumping cockroaches.  The roaches really hate this and are starting academies for kick boxing.  In fact, one group of roaches started a public awareness campaign: “The Jumping From Behind Must Stop!”  Another group decided retaliation was the best course.  They roam around in gangs and when they come on a boy mantis, they jump him and yell “How do YOU like it? Huh?”  There are rallies where roaches get together and run around carrying signs:  “Stop the Bugging, You Freaks!”  They have no sympathy for the male manti who just can’t deal with their women.  Yet another group encouraged the male manti to try mediation and negotiation with the females.  The cockroaches got some males and females into a workshop to talk about “Murder Is Not The Answer,” but the girls just waved their spindly long arms at the boys and taunted them: “Kissy, kissy, you big hunk.”

On an interview with FrontLine, a female praying mantis, pressed on why this morbid practice persists, said: “I just can’t help myself.  It seems so natural.  I think God meant for things to be this way.  There must be a deep reason or mystery behind it.”  The interviewer asked, “Have any manti explored the reasons, through meditation, or research, or just plain guessing?”  And she replied, “Well we don’t have any celibate males to help us out here.  They are all dead.  Go figure.”   Then she added, “The women are so busy having and raising babies that we cannot worry about the men.  Have you tried to find affordable day care so you can pursue a career in science?  The men just AREN’T THERE to help.”

Now, religious conservatives have tried to help the males by pitching Abstinence Programs to them.  They say, “Kissing is serious business.  Trust us, you will get murdered if you have sex.  There is no such thing as losing your virginity and living to tell the tale.”   They have tried to get the male manti to agree on “designated procreators,” that is, letting a few sacrifice for the many.  They are meeting a lot of resistance, because a lot of the boys just go off and steal a kiss anyway, thinking their kiss will be different, and there you go again.  And the other boys make fun of the “designated procreators,” calling them “suicide suckers.” 

An Islamic group has tried to recruit “suicide kissers” by promising them a bunch of females in heaven who don’t bite.  But nobody believes that story.

Some of the older and wiser females have argued that it might not be a bad idea to have a few men around to help with the babies, and that getting rid of them so fast is rather harsh.  They have put together workshops on “Boundary Issues:  Separating Sex and Hunger.”  They suggest having a few snacks before the female goes out, so that if she has some kissing fun, she leaves a few men to Kiss Another Day.  They have a program called “Kiss and Abstain from Biting His Head Off.”  But there has been a backlash from other female manti whose message is “Biting is Half of The Fun.”  Also, they argue that males are a major source of food and they don’t have time to raise organic vegetables.

Molly, I don’t know if we are going to find a happy resolution to the Kiss of Death in our lifetime.  People find it hard to give up Murder in the Name of Love.  The short brutal life of a male mantis is lamentable.   The ladies just can’t stop using them and losing them.  It is going to take the Coming of the Enlightened Lady to stop the murder and bring back a little R-E-S-PE-C-T.