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Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Muddled Male


Estrogen vs Testosterone
 
By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

         I have always considered myself an average, all around nice guy.  My sisters, on the other hand, claim that while I may have mellowed a little in my declining years, I was a brat as a kid.  In my defense, I was the only boy in a house full of girls, so I was trying to survive while living under an estrogen-to-testosterone ratio that stood at four-to-two.  Since my dad was usually at work, however, the ratio hovered much of the time at four-to-one, with me being the one.  On top of that, we regularly had at least one grandmother staying with us along with one or more relatives of the female persuasion so that the real ratio was closer to six-to-one.  Two more sisters were added to the group about the time I was leaving home, but they didn’t know me in my youth and so they think that I have always been nice. 

            My only advantage living under those trying conditions was that I was the first born of my siblings which gave me certain privileges, one being the allowance to be a brat.  Another was to have had extra time to learn the fine art of being devious and to have been able to practice while the estrogen level still stood at a manageable ratio of one to one, meaning me and my mom who still loved me at the time because I was the only one around.  I tell you this in case you hear some of the unfounded stories that are being spread by my sisters and given substance by Ann, my wife, who has taken the part of my dearly departed mother and did so to make certain that the estrogen vs testosterone level didn’t decline. 

            The first story you might hear has to do with Bob, the Mathematical Genius.  Their claim is that I told them I could do any combination of arithmetical calculations in my head as fast as they could say them to me and I would give them an immediate answer without the use of a calculator. 
 
So they would say, “Add one million, two hundred thirty seven thousand, four hundred eighty three, to four hundred fifty seven thousand, four hundred fourteen.  Then divide that answer by thirteen, and then multiply the whole thing by fourteen million, three hundred eighty seven thousand, three hundred twenty three.”  I would purse my lips, squint my eyes and say, “The answer is one billion, three hundred thirteen million, four hundred seventy five thousand, five hundred fifteen,” and they would marvel at my obvious brilliance and then go away to think up another combination of numbers in an attempt to trip me up.  They were sixty-two before they realized that I had just been making up the answers. 

            A second story you might hear has to do with Bob, the Fish Boy.  Their claim in this case is that I told them I could breathe under water like a fish.  Then I would jump in the pool and submerge myself in water, all the time holding my breath while I made my chest expand and contract as though I was breathing in and out.  They are still trying to blame me for putting them in danger on the basis that they might have tried to emulate their beloved, older brother and drowned themselves.  I bet that if they had, they would still be blaming me, and Ann would have agreed with them. 

            The unfair part is that I am seventy-eight years old and they are still calling me Bob the Brat.  Ann, reading this over my shoulder, just yelled, “YEEEESSSSS.”

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