THE TRUTH ABOUT OLD MEN - Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The truth about old men isn’t hard to tell. What’s hard is to keep it a secret. Now and then one of us lets it out. Howard Cosell was America’s preeminent sports broadcaster, having logged a lifetime of national spotlight, covering everything from the rise of Muhammad Ali through Olympic ceremonies all the way to Monday Night Football when he said the sentence that ended his career. “Look at that little monkey run.” Goodbye Howard.

New Yorkers had been intimidated by the granite countenance of Don Imus glaring at them from bus billboards for decades until that fatal radio show that found him saying the phrase, “...nappy headed hos.” Goodbye Imus.

Keeping one’s mouth shut is especially difficult for old men who are being paid vast sums of money to express their opinions. It’s much easier for old men who are bosses, but they don’t exactly get a free ride. Try telling a female employee her hair looks nice and you’ll find yourself on the wrong end of a career-shattering law suit, alleging sexual harassment. What you said is of no concern to the judge. The law’s only interest is in what the employee THOUGHT you meant by the statement.

How is it possible that your job could fall into jeopardy and your career come to a close over what another person THINKS you MEANT when you said, “Your hair looks nice today”?

It takes an old man to see the wisdom of it. Here’s the chronology of the enigma: Wife got tired of your refusal to read between the lines when she hinted at what she meant. She believes it should be illegal to actually say what you really think. She and her girlfriends do not communicate that way. Instead, they require the men in their lives to “read between the lines“, and any man unable or unwilling to do that is guilty of divorce-proportion punishment for not being sensitive enough to GUESS what they are thinking. They’re tired of it and not going to take it anymore. They all go down to register at the polls. They elect politicians who support their position that men should be required to “read between the lines” when women speak. Reading between the lines becomes a requirement subject to legal action when it is disregarded. Reading between the lines is now an accepted form of communication enforced by the courts in the workplace. In fact, if we don’t like what we hear when we read between the lines you speak, your career is kaput. Don’t think being Howard Cocell or Don Imus can save you. And it sure as hell won’t save a boss stupid enough to compliment a female employee on her haircut.

The truth about old men is that they’re no different than they were when they were young men. The survivors have simply learned to keep their mouths shut. Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of an old man. Who can guess when it will fall out in an unguarded moment? Who’d-a thunk the secretary would ever get wise to my real meaning when I said, “Your hair looks nice today”? How on earth did she ever guess I was really thinking, “Show me your tits.” But then who’d-a thunk a man could lose his job over what he was thinking, whether he was actually thinking it or not.

An old man understands where the game, GUESS WHAT I’M THINKING came from. It’s a parlor trick Wife once used to prevent him from dodging the blame for not being able to read her mind. He just never expected it to find its way into the workplace and, if he were stupid enough to tell you what he‘s really thinking, you‘d discover he believes there’s something diabolical about GUESS WHAT I’M THINKING being used to decide legal issues in a court room. But it is.

So...just in case you don’t have it yet, because you haven‘t mastered the technique of reading between the lines, let’s put it down in plain language. In sexual harassment cases what the old man actually said to the female employee is irrelevant. The only relevant issue to the court is what she thought he was thinking when he said it. Confused? More than half of us are very clear on the matter. That would include the half of us who are female amplified by the sleazy bastards who have sold their soul to your X-wife in exchange for her vote at the polls.

The truth about old men is that they’re always thinking show me your tits when they say, “Your hair looks nice today.” You can’t fire them all, so you have to make the cut somewhere. Who gets off the hook? The ones smart enough to pretend they’re gay before they say the phrase, “Your hair looks nice today.” They’re allowed. We give them that dispensation because they know how to read between the lines. Unfortunately, it’s a gift confined to gay salesmen and female news anchors who will need it to locate the missing woman in Mexico.