MALE MENOPAUSE FOR AMATEURS (reprinted with permission)

What is it about men when they approach forty?  It’s like some kind of communal revelation.  Moses comes down from the mountain with an Etch-a-Sketch and all forty-something men the world over suddenly realize “Holy Smoke! I never got that electric slot car set when I was eight and time is running out…”

There are several ways to tell when a guy is getting to that age.  For one thing he no longer fast forwards through the hair replacement commercials.

Another sign is the basement. Our basement used to be a general clearing house for gargantuan ‘projects’.  You know…things like those partially completed but never installed shelves for the office.  Now our basement is a storage area for the local toy store.

Somehow, my guy has managed to get through 39 years without the need for toy airplanes – until last month.  Now he can’t manage without two.  In fact, he couldn’t make up his mind which one to buy (another sign of getting older: INDECISION) so he bought both. One is a common balsa wood wind-up thingy, of the boy scout variety.  The second is a blue and white foam bird that has a disturbing tendency to hit the ground nose first shortly after launching.  But it has a high ‘cuteness’ factor.

Another sign is the remote control cars.  Apparently it’s not enough to have real cars when you’re grown up.  You also require miniature battery powered jobbies which disappear down sewer grates.  We have three.  (We had four before the previously mentioned ‘unfortunate incident.’) And I’m buying stock in EverReady.

But the dead give-away was the classic male menopause statement uttered in front of the television this week: “I want to buy a Harley.”  Not just any old Honda, mind you, but a HARLEY.  This, coming from a man who has never had the slighted interest in anything with only two wheels, because “It doesn’t have 550 horse power and ten thousand foot pounds of torque.  Also, we might get wet.” 

The final sign of male menopause is that victims tend to be forgetful.  In fact, you may even find that your guy forgets your wedding anniversary.

This is okay as long as he doesn’t forget he’s married.