Here’s to the ladies

CAPE TIMES, 8 AUGUST 2002

SAY, DID YOU know it’s Women’s Day tomorrow? No, don’t roll your eyes like that, Women’s Day is important. Women are important, if you want my opinion on it. If it weren’t for women, we would all be men, and that is just not a fate worth considering.

Imagine a world without women. I mean a world other than certain bars in Somerset Road. If we were all men, no one would ever stop to ask for directions, so when we became lost in our cars we would just drive around in circles forever, scowling at the street signs. Over enough time, the whole world would be on the roads, just driving and driving, everyone growing old looking for wherever it is he was originally going. Imagine the traffic jam. Imagine the road rage. It would be the end of life as we know it. This is how the world would end: not with a bang but with a bunch of guys braining each other with hockey sticks.

Women are important for many other reasons too. If it weren’t for women, no one would ever make their beds. Is there a man in the world who would make his bed in the morning if he were left to his own devices? I don’t know why women consider the made bed to be such a symbol of all that is good about civilisation, but they do. Women are about as likely to leave their home with the bed unmade as we are likely to leave the bar with some beer left in the glass. What would the world be like if no one made their bed? Would the fabric of society unravel? Would the mask fall from our savage faces? I don’t know, and thanks to women, I will never have to find out.

Women single-handedly keep the crockery industry in business. If there were no women, who would bother with saucers? Who would buy a sugar bowl, much less use it for holding sugar? Even dinner plates wouldn’t survive without women. If the cardboard box didn’t leak while it was being delivered, I always say, there is no call to remove the pizza from it now.

Oh, I like women for many reasons. They buy more books than men do. Admittedly, they mainly buy The Naked Chef and inspiring Oprah book-club choices about women who overcome personal hardship or the kidnapping of their children, but that is better than nothing. If it weren’t for women, our book stores would sell nothing at all besides the memoirs of American CEOs, and weak parables about corporate change. No, women are great. They smell better than men, provided they do not happen to be carrying a baby or a cat, and they live longer than men do. Especially those rural Frenchwomen. The oldest women in the world always seems to be living in the French countryside. Bless them. If I weren’t able to say, “There is a 120-year-old woman in rural France who has spent her entire life smoking and drinking,” I would have no defence for my lifestyle whatsoever.

Good for women, I say. They get the thumbs-up from me. Ladies, I wish you a good Women’s Day tomorrow. I am not entirely sure what women do on Women’s Day, just as I am not entirely sure what women do between the time they say “Okay, I’m ready to go” and the time they are actually ready to go, but that is none of my business. Whatever you gals will be doing tomorrow, you deserve to enjoy it. Here’s to you.