I Could Be Wrong. . .

But I am beginning to think males and females might be different

The theme for this column stems from observing our two cats. Sure, I SAID there would not be another cat column for awhile, and I am a woman of my word. It goes without saying that there is no truth to the vicious sexist rumor that women change their minds overmuch. The reference to cats will be merely tangential. And there will be no pictures.

Cocoa and Tyrus – you may remember if you took good notes for the quiz later – are siblings from a litter of five born on August 26^th, 2025. Cocoa is the female and Tyrus is the male.

They have been offered exactly the same diet and amount of food. Cocoa is a very good eater. And yet, Cocoa weighs just under 6 pounds and Tyrus weighs almost 10 lbs. His head is about 50% larger than hers. He strides like a panther and she toddles. It’s too cute to bear. She can also “bustle” as though she has some very important task to attend to, while Tyrus takes a more leisurely approach, unless Pedro has shown up with his leaf blower.

Remember when it was noticed that Justice Ketanji Jackson speaks many thousands more words than anyone else on the Court? (See the latest stats immediately below.) But, just because Cocoa is a black female, it is purely coincidental that she is about 1000% meow-ier than Tyrus. She is VERY verbal, while Tyrus is of a calm and quiet nature unless she gets on his last nerve or attempts to go UNDER him in order to steal his treats. Then, he will invoke the “Brother Rule” and pummel her. (She has no chance, BUT she will bide her time and ambush him at her first opportunity.)

Let us leave the feline kingdom now as promised, to go to male and female humans.

We shall STIPULATE at the outset that although there will be humorous stereotypes, that I am fully aware there are outliers and exceptions. So, don’t be all up in my face about “hey, Ammo, I know a woman who can bench press 300 lbs and a man who can bake a 7 layer wedding cake, OK?” Because I already know that. Our son had an elementary school teacher who could sew his own suits, for Pete’s sake, and to my knowledge, he wasn’t even gay. He just enjoyed tailoring. Like Rosie Grier enjoyed needlepoint and nobody said a mumbling word to him.

Joe and I are big fans of Dry Bar comedy, where there are guardrails to both profanity and vulgarity and yet the comics are generally outstanding. And they are also at LEAST 85% male, maybe more. It is painful to notice, but, I believe that the vast majority of female comics working today are not funny. Especially when they decide that they are a “feminist” comic.

Forty-five years ago (yikes!) when I got into standup, at first I was the only woman in the premier Minneapolis club who worked with a terrific line-up of five or six young men, including several who went on to write standup for others in Hollywood, to write for various sit-coms and to do very well for themselves. It was my comedy college.

A comic prospers by working every type of venue – from Union Night at a real blue collar club; to casinos where the management tried to pay me in chips; to rural Wisconsin bars with beer bottles crashing into a trash can in the background. For some reason, I proved a good fit with hunters’ groups like Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and FNAWS – literally, Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.

(At their huge convention in Reno, the organization had a lottery for hunters to win the right to get a license to shoot at wild sheep, -- no guarantees of actually bagging one! -- with the final license being auctioned off. This was decades ago, and that last license went for $150,000! And you think WOMEN spend foolishly on shoes and handbags?)

[First bonus joke: Chuck Norris had a polar bear rug. It wasn’t actually dead, it was just too scared to move. And sure enough, someone eventually made it into a meme!]

And here’s the thing: in order to play these venues, a woman comic cannot just talk about how awful men are or how inconvenient it is to have periods. So, women comics who had general “Seinfeldian” observational humor did well and feminist comics did not.

So, why are so many women comics just not funny? Well, often they limit the scope of their comedy with focus on being the “woman” part of the woman comic instead of the comedic part. Also, in my professional opinion, they take way too long to get to a punchline.

It’s kind of baked in the cake of the way many women communicate. In a personal conversation, where a “regular”, non-comic woman is trying to describe an amusing anecdote, she will include WAY too much extraneous detail.

Long ago, a particular friend would try to tell a story that would devolve into something like this: “so, my friend Theresa, who I have known since 4^th grade – no wait,, it was 3^rd grade because I remember Mrs. Nelson was the teacher, and anyway, we were going to go to a movie last Tuesday. No wait, it was Wednesday…and she wanted popcorn, but I wanted Dots…”

And you just want to scream, “IS THERE EVER GOING TO BE A BLEEPING POINT HERE?” But, of course, you don’t, because she’s a woman and a friend and it would hurt her feelings. And sometimes…much much later, there actually IS a point.

I did hear a woman comic – whose name I would tell you if I had caught it, but I tuned in in the middle – who had one really funny bit. She was talking about men paying for sex and said SHE would pay a guy just to sit and listen to her anecdotes and the only thing he would be allowed to say was: “And THEN what happened?”

Now THAT’S funny!

Then, of course, there is Girl Math. And yes, I have been known to engage in it, okay? Something that is ON SALE for $200 instead of $275, does NOT mean you “saved” $75.00. What you did was SPEND $200. But that is alright. Did you “need” the item? Of course you did. According to your personal definition of the word “need,” like Bill Clinton’s definition of “is.” Did you enjoy the item after buying it? Or, does the item still bear the sale tags? Because the garment has never been worn despite the certainty that you were GOING to fit into it any minute now. No matter. Life is long. You could STILL be a Size 4. Never give up. Keep it forever.

My record was at SteinMart one glorious day where I bought nothing that was not on Red Tag FINAL CLEARANCE. The final tab was $760 worth of very nice – if not precisely THE latest – clothing for $112. That is my record and even the checkout clerk at SteinMart was impressed! Now THAT is an actual sale! Plus, I really needed the items and even fit into them. At that time.

Also, I love cookbooks and have way too many of them. But, I have a legitimate Girl Math reason for buying them. Seriously. Here is my reasoning. First of all, most of them come from remainder bins at the supermarket, so cost somewhere between $10-15. But, my logic is this: IF I make just ONE recipe in this book from scratch instead of going out to a restaurant – even counting the money for the ingredients -- the book has paid for itself! Do the Math – Girl OR Boy Math. Prove me wrong.

In the matter of parallel parking, as it happens by sheer luck, I can do it – even in fairly tight spaces. But, I have seen women with 3 car lengths of room be unable to put that car anywhere closer than a yard from the curb and pointed at an odd angle. One time I was seated by the window in a downtown Minneapolis restaurant with my best guy friend (RIP, Randy), and we watched a poor woman struggle for about 15 minutes to parallel park with LOTS of space. Finally, Randy could take it no longer and went out and did it for her, literally in 8 seconds. I counted…one Mississippi, etc.

This was decades ago, so the chance that this large, friendly blond man would simply drive off with her car was not yet on the lady’s radar. She even tried to pay him, but of course, he refused. How times change.

I have never, even once, seen a male person (outside of someone in a car marked Student Driver) fail to execute an excellent parallel park.

Last Friday, we enjoyed a lively discussion of the wisdom of letting naked men flop about in real-women spaces. Much hilarity and common sense ensued. Not even to mention a new comment record!

In previous columns we have discussed the inhumanity of letting bigger, stronger, faster born-males compete in sports exclusively reserved for females by Title IX. This, despite the United States’ Women’s Professional Soccer players getting trounced by 8^th grade boys, to take but one mortifying example which a sane person would think should be definitive.

Although I do not follow tennis played by men or women, I could not help but notice the amazing physique of Serena Williams. Goodness sakes, she looked like some sort of A.I.-generated African Goddess or Queen with about 2% body fat and muscles on top of her muscles. I would have bet the ranch that she could have beaten any man in the sport. And – by Serena’s OWN admission – I would have LOST that ranch and would now be making a list of fans and commenters with guestrooms, casitas or nearby campsites. Serena said she could probably not beat the first 350 seeded men in tennis.

But, the Left is too stupid to be able to extrapolate from that example that MAYBE, just MAYBE, that means we should not let male boxers punch women boxers in the face in the Olympics.

We women are tough as nails in many areas, not least of which is in the area of pain tolerance. My Obstetrician told me that “if men and women took turns having babies, and the man started first, that no family would contain more than two children.”

I have seen movies and REAL videos of Navy Seal and Special Forces training. So you cannot convince me that men cannot tolerate a horrifying amount of PAIN. On the other hand, you never wanted to see my dear late Papa when he had a COLD. “Dorothy, could you make me some hot lemonade?” “Dorothy, could you come and fluff my pillows?” “Dorothy, could you move the Kleenex box where I can reach it better?” And so forth. Talk about spoiled!

One theme that has been percolating along for about 50 years now, is the notion that being in a relationship with a man is just too much trouble and women should be (say it with me, now) “Strong Independent Women.” Though you notice that “Strong Independent Men” are never mentioned and would not be prized at all. Which is odd because almost every man I’ve ever known would fit that description, and thank God for them.

There is nothing wrong either with strength or a certain level of “independence”. Especially for those who cannot abide ever being inconvenienced by tending to anyone else’s needs even for a minute. But I personally cannot see how they do without a loving person who will always have their back. But, I have recently learned that I am only a “trad wife”. (Which I answer by saying that at least we “trad wives” aren’t often “traded wives”).

Final Bonus joke today: A recently-married woman moves into the home her husband has already been living in and complains to him that his boat, his motorcycle, his tools, his golf clubs and his pickup are taking up way too much room and he needs to get rid of something to make more room.

He: “Boy, you sound just like my ex-wife!”

She: “You never told me you’d been married before!”

He: “I haven’t.”