Tim Allen - Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

Finally, it's off to Fishingland. Full of fish things. You can see fish, touch fish, kiss fish. Even feel what it's like to be hooked.

"Hold still, kid."

"Oh, god that hurts! Oh, sonofabitch that hurts!"

"Try that!"

"Oh, jeez, you're right, that hook really hurts. Isn't that great!" You've got to watch a bass‑fishing tournament to really understand the male psyche. I watched one on TNN. It was the seminationals. The contest consisted of teams of two fat guys with double given names-Joe Bob, Ray Bob, Tim Dick-sitting on top of bar stools in a boat made of thirty‑five feet of metal‑flake fiberglass, powered by an 830‑horsepower Mercury motor. Are bass particularly fast little fish? Are Jim Bob and Sam Bob trying to run them down? Do they have to grab them by the head? Why do the boats have to be so fast?

I flew down to Mexico with marlin fishermen once. Now these are big fish. Do you have to eat a piece of marlin to be in this club? Do fishermen even eat fish? I don't think so.

After all the fun at Tim Al‑Land, it's finally time to go.

There's a bar next door to the Ladies' Annex where you can grab a beer just in case your wife's hair still isn't done.

But please, no firing the sixty‑millimeter guns at the Annex.

- -

What excites me about men is what they can do when they direct their energy. There's nothing more impressive than the things we've built. Environmentally and socially there may be something wrong with the Hoover Dam, but if you look at it and feel the grandeur of it, and realize that men designed and built that, it's almost too breathtaking to bear. And the Grand Canyon! Took almost two years-and men did it. And how about the Chunnel, the tunnel between England and France? So what if they missed each other by a few feet trying to meet in the middle? Come on. A few feet in the scheme of things? A little water helps break up the boredom of the drive.

I'll let you in on a secret. All mistakes men make are planned. This gives us a reason to go back to where we live and breathe.

In the men's zone.

If it's got an engine, men love it. If it goes fast, men will figure out a way to make it go faster. Men love anything that makes noise, spins, moves, or smokes. If it's big, make it bigger. If it's loud, make it louder. Men's stuff is always audible. Fishing rods whir. Boltaction guns "chuck." Cameras click. New stereo equipment sighs. From a toaster to a Stealth bomber, we're always trying to add more power.

Speedintensityvolumepower. Speedintensityvolumepower. The mantra of the modern man.

Men's zones are filled with men's stuff. The whole world is filled with men's stuff. I don't know why men have so much stuff. Maybe it's because we never listened to our mothers when we were kids. We should have cleaned up our rooms when she told us to.

No wonder the world is one big mess.

Many sociologists, mostly women-okay, only Dr. Joyce Brothers-have postulated that there are specific reasons why men have so much stuff. I haven't spoken to her personally, so I don't know what these reasons are. However, I believe men's fascination with tools, cars, stereos, computers, and collecting beer bottles from around the planet stems from the creation urge. Men can't have babies, so it's our way of feeling important and useful. This, more than an inherent fascination with socket wrenches, is what makes us want to crawl under the car and restrut the suspension, or change the oil every three thousand miles, and not mind when big globs of filthy petroleum product land smack on our foreheads. This urge to control something is what draws us to a shoeshine kit full of black, brown, and cordovan polish; and brushes and rags caked with spittle.

Having mentioned shoes, here's a question that's always nagged me: What is it with women and shoes, anyway? Women don't seem to realize that they can actually polish shoes in the home. They get a scuff and the shoes are as good as garbage. It's time to go shopping for another pair. If we could redirect the money spent on overpriced women's footwear, we could halve the national debt. Women have fifteen pairs of shoes in the closet, and that's just in black. There are slant‑back heels, half heels, spikes, pumps, espadrilles, and shoes that don't even look like shoes.

Don't tell me that being able to have babies eradicates all of women's compulsions.

For instance, the purse thing. Women have sixty purses, and I've still got the same wallet I made in camp.

There's not a man I know who would purposely look in a woman's purse. Purse snatchers learn this early. Grab the purse, dump the lipstick, earrings, cosmetics, tampons, datebook, car keys, combs and brushes, diet energy bars, sleeping bag, pup tent, Miata. Get the money. I've never looked in a woman's purse. Never opened one. A real man doesn't go into a purse. It's a no‑man's‑land. You can lose yourself in that thing. My wife once discovered $300 in her purse that she'd misplaced. How do you do that? I can understand misplacing the money, but in your own purse? But she looked in her purse and there it was, right next to the antique dresser.

My wife and I went to Florence, Italy, recently. She said she wanted to see Michelangelo's David and other classic works of art. She didn't tell me she'd discovered that Florence is where the purse was invented. We went shopping ten minutes after we'd checked into our hotel. They've got two streets of shops that just sell brown purses. My wife's eyes left their sockets! And then she was gone. I followed her into a store and there she was, "trying on a purse!"

"Just buy them all," I said. "We've got stuff to do. Great art to see."

"The David's waited this long," she said. "I don't think he's getting off his pedestal and going anywhere for the next couple of days. Besides, these purses are on sale and they're Italian. Now how 'bout this clutch? Too clunky?"

What could I say? My wife is just as confused when I try to explain why I need another tool I'm never going to use.

Meanwhile, she's modeling purses and I'm fighting off narcolepsy. I can't shop with women. I just get tired. I walk into the women's wear department of any store and my energy just goes to hell. I'm suddenly seven and in the backseat of the family station wagon, being lulled to sleep by the hum of the road. There's something about fluorescent lights in malls that makes me very weak. It's like they're made of kryptonite. (However, fluorescent lights in electronics stores make me feel suddenly energetic.) Women know this. That's why, instead of letting you go off and do your own shopping, they make you sit in those little student punishment seats by the dressing rooms. Then they waltz out in some god‑awful frou‑frou and say, "What do you think?"

You muster the stock answer. "Nice. Very nice." And then you follow with the appropriate shared "nod and smile" to the exhausted husband in the other chair.

Then she disappears and returns with a cocktail purse that matches the outfit. It's about the size of a maraschino cherry and it costs $3,000. At that price it should match any outfit. It just carries itself. Oh-and you can't fit anything in it.

"It's supposed to be decorative, honey."

Oh, the things you want to say, but don't.

- -

I love cars. Cars are my life. My wife is a bright corporate lady who could care less about cars. When we could finally afford to buy her any car she wanted, I asked her to reveal to me her heart's desire. Anything, anything, anything. ."

"Red," she said.

Boys fantasize about cars because cars mean only one thing: extending boundaries way past home. They represent adventure. You can drive across country. You can get out of town. Cars are freedom. Guys want power. Freedom is power. (Like most kids, I also fantasized about being a superhero. I liked Spiderman. And what did I want to use my new superpowers for? To get a car. That's me. Lofty goals.)