I have—at long last—developed a sure-fire way of telling if you or someone you love is a member of Generation X. (This, of course, means that—if male—this person should also have full and bushy eyebrows. Joey Lawrence, are you listening? Oh, it’s probably too late for him anyway. Those things don’t always grow back ya know.)

Oops, sorry. Momentary lapse.

Okay, so you might be a Gen Xer if shortly after clicking the following link you utter anything along the lines of “OMG,” “sweet,” “no way,” etc. If you don’t, you’re either (a) old, (b) a raging biscuit but too young to know it yet, or (c) terminally uncool. That tiny voice in the back of your head will tell you which.

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The lead in says (without any irony I can detect):

In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter

Come on, now. You didn’t honestly think I was gonna be all like “Whoo hoo! Look at me … I’m Time‘s Person of the Year! Dood, so are you! We rawk!!!”

I don’t know about y’all, but I mattered way before the Internets and way before Time deigned to acknowledge the grandiosity de moi. So did my contributions, however wee and humble. Maybe not to Lev Grossman or the folks over at our friendly neighborhood media conglomerate, but to the people who matter I mattered. And that’s all that matters, as a matter of fact.

Furthermore, even if I didn’t hate sycophants and their phony-baloney ways (which I most ardently do), the time to kiss someone’s ass is when they’re still struggling to make it, not when they have a super rad blog and tremendously huge piles of money and pork belly futures and shit—like some people I know. Duh.

So, no, Mr. Parsons, you can’t “kick it” with me and Kanye in the Hamptons. Man, move on. This is getting embarrassing.

So say I. So say we all. (And, by we, I mean me … now with 10% more gusto.)

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I’m feeling a little loquacious today, so I’m thinkin’ now’s a good time to maybe sit back and listen a little (aka, STFU). To that end, I’ve got a few serious queries for the dudes out there.

Without further ado …

1. How come when dudes get full-serve gas, they still have to get outta the car and hover near the gas tank … I mean, TV remote hover?
The person pumping does it all day long, right? Which is to say—he knows what he’s doing. If it’s a macho thing, which it kinda seems to be, then why not be a real man and pump your own gas … er, I mean, save yourself some money and go self-serve?

2. How come some dudes leave an empty seat between them when they go to the movies together sans women?
This question also applies to when guys won’t sit directly across from one another when dining mano a mano, so to speak. I’m sure there are other scenarios that fall under this particular category of man weirdness. If you’ve got other examples, feel free to share them with the group.

3. What look, exactly, are guys going for when they get their eyebrows waxed?
According to my calculations (and Wikipedia), Joey Lawrence is part of Gen X and, thus, old enough to know better. When I turned 30, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to begin finding bald guys attractive, but I just don’t think I can adjust should eyebrow waxing become widespread.

Why not ask my friends you say? Well, when I ask my girlfriends, all I get is, “Cuz dudes are silly/weird/stupid” … you get the idea. When I ask my guy friends, they just start going on and on about how they never do such and such, etc., etc.

If you’ve got something better to offer—and how could you not?—leave a comment with your thoughts. In return, I’m happy to answer (to the best of my ability) your questions probing the nature of the feminine mystique. Include your Why Do Chicks … ? questions in your answer, and I’ll respond in a future post.

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Now, I’m not about to B&M about the facist leanings of our government on the one hand and then advocate for compulsory decorating regulations on the other.

That being said, I do think that there is a common-sense limit to the number of kilowatt hours it is reasonable to expended in the name of the baby Jesus.

This ain’t it, folks.

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