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

If you want to see what I mean about these temperature differentials, try taking a bath with a woman. You could boil fish in a woman's bathwater. You've got to use your balls as a thermometer and do Sumo wrestler deep knee bends to see if your jewels get too warm. By the time you're in, the water's lukewarm, and she's out.

My wife and I were in a Miami hotel once, trying to sleep, but running wind sprints to the room thermostat instead. When I finally turned it off it was 98 degrees. This was the middle of summer. Maximum humidity. It was so damn hot that I looked like I had malaria. I had a glaze on and there were yellow flies circling my head. I had to have a big bottle of quinine next to the bed.

Meanwhile, she's got the comforter up around her neck, going, "Are you chilly at all?"

I said, "Look at me. I've got cracked lips, I've got that desert pallor." I looked horrible. Turns out she was chilled because she had her period. As we know, a man can't understand that unless he's in a woman's body.

So don't even try.

- -

There's not a woman reading this book who's ever had her butt sticking in the air and a flame shooting out of it. This is a primary difference between women and men. Men will actually light a fart. Yes, I know you women are saying, "Wait, wait!" But it's true. Ask your husband.

Women don't think of things like this. I've known my wife twelve years and she hasn't ever farted, much less blown a torch out of her butt. At least, not that I know of. I don't ask her to tell me when it happens, either, but you'd think once every few years you'd hear a noise. And you know women don't say to other women, "Helen, come over here, pull my finger."

Can you imagine women lighting farts?

"Uh, Janet? Put a cap in it. This is a bridge club, not a refinery."

Women never go out of the house with a booger in their nose, either. Think about it. You've never seen it. I always have boogers in my nose. Before important meetings my wife says, "Tim. ."

"What? Oh oh." How do you miss a booger as big as a moose? Simple. I don't look in the mirror. I've got whiteheads, hairs growing out of my ears, and my wife is just like a baboon, plucking and pulling at me.

"Get away!"

Women are always looking at themselves in the mirror. Men look once in a while. We get about five feet away, angle ourselves till we find a position that looks pretty cool, and that's it. Men as a rule think they're far better looking than they are. Women, as a rule, think they're far uglier than they really are. Men find a pose and freeze: "I look pretty goddamn good at that angle!" This is one reason bald guys can even walk out of the house. Angles.

Women squint about a millimeter from the mirror and find stuff that dermatologists don't even want to look at. Squeezing, popping, fidgeting. They come out of the bathroom looking like you beat 'em up! They've got little blue marks all over their faces.

"How do I look?"

I want to say, "You look like hell." But you tell them that and it causes another zit, so it's "Yeah, you look great."

Women don't believe you anyway. Not when they've got mirrors that make their nose hairs look like timbers.

Women don't burp, either: "Hey Helen, blaaaaat!"

Men are chronic burpers. My brother has turned it into an Olympic event. One Thanksgiving he did a blow burp across the table, just a "bluuuuuhhhh."

"Oh, man. Was that you? Good one! I think you knocked Grandma in the soup with that one. Yup, she's down!"

And women don't learn how to spit. Men have to get their hawking act together early. You can't graduate to manhood otherwise. I'd love to see my Gram and Aunt Rose burping and spitting.

"My, my, that cheese ring was rich, wasn't it?"

"Phhhttt."

- -

Sometimes a man can learn something important from a woman.

I came in early one night from watching a Monday‑night football game at a friend's. The ladies were in the house gathered in front of a Discovery Channel special on breast cancer. I didn't know what they were doing. I just saw breasts being groped.

"Yeah. You gals are a little hipper than I thought."

You idiot!

Pretty quickly I had to sit there and shut up and learn about breast cancer. They say that if women, starting at age thirty‑five, had a breast exam about once a year, breast cancer would be reduced by forty percent. I think one problem is that men don't realize how degrading the examination is for women. Have you ever seen a mammogram machine? It's like a drill press for tits.

"Hey, hey, hey! Get it outta there!"

I don't think a woman designed this machine. I'm glad they don't do penograms.

Or do they?

I don't want to know. The prostate exam is bad (and necessary) enough.

- -

The things that women will go through to make themselves beautiful for their boyfriends and husbands amazes me. Plucking their eyebrows. Bikini waxing. Ripping hair right off their crotches. This is something you will never see a man doing. That ball hair is staying right where it is. Even though we all gotta admit that ball hair is the ugliest spot on the planet Earth. There's not a woman alive who hasn't been scared to death of her husband naked bent over a bathtub. She wanders in and… "AAAAAAHHHH!. . Oh, it's you. I thought a wildebeest had wandered in here or something. Honey, I love you, I really do, but I don't ever want to see that again!"

- -

There's something I want to make perfectly clear-now that Richard Nixon is gone, that phrase is up for grabs, isn't it? Dibs!‑‑before I get into big trouble. It's a misnomer to call anybody "yours." Throughout this book, I'm always saying "My wife."

Laura is not my wife. She's just nobody else's wife.

"Hi, I'm Tim, and this is nobody else's wife, Laura."

- -

I don't want to be flippant about this. This is a philosophical problem that strikes to the heart of the matter. It epitomizes the differences between men and women, between ideological groups, even countries. One way or another this is at the heart of all arguments: Seat up or seat down?

"Remember to put the seat down after you're done."

"Why? Do you put the seat up after you're done?"

"Just put it down."

"Why?"

Trust me, women will come up with a reason.

"It looks better down. It's gotta be down."

"Yeah? Then I've always got to lift it up, or I dribble on the seat. ."

"Well, if you leave it down," says my wife, "then I've got to sit on it."

Look, I can understand that in the middle of the night a woman doesn't like to accidentally fall into the can when the last thing she's thinking about is whether the seat is up or down.

But why is it my responsibility to put it down anymore than it's hers to put it up? I sit down, too, now and then.

Okay, okay. If seats were meant to be up, why would they make lids in the first place? All right? Is my macho withering before your eyes? The normal position is with the lid down. You don't leave car doors open so the next time you can just step right in.

But seat up/seat down speaks to a larger issue: Who is right, and who is wrong?

Speaking from a male perspective, it seems men are always wrong. Naturally wrong. Women will joke about it, like, "Yes, you are, ha‑ha‑ha," but women come from the position that they're right anyway and we're always wrong to begin with. They laugh it off, "Don't let it bother you. It's really just part of your charm."

Of course, the point of this book has been to have fun with those differences; have fun and move on.

Do I look stupid? Why do you think they're called secrets?

Have a kid and everything changes. This will not be news to most of you, but it was news to me. Big news. I had heard those words over and over, and still I couldn't have anticipated the consequences. No one could have accurately described them to me, even though lots of people tried.