Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Coming out of the Christmas season I have had a realization about the role of the male in contemporary suburban society. A huge percentage of Americans live in the suburbs, and many smaller cities are really more suburban than urban these days. 100,000 years ago the male may have been in charge of hunting or other primitive man duties, and 100 years ago the man may have been responsible for the family income and the major decisions, but now the primary role of the man, in my view, is Stuff Wrangler.

In case you doubt me on this one, here is a list of some of the ways that the modern male is often expected to wrangle stuff:

• carrying diaper bags
• carrying grocery bags
• carrying shopping bags
• handling suitcases
• doing home repair
• taking care of car maintenance
• taking out the trash
• moving furniture
• walking the dog
• cleaning the hairball out of the drain
• killing/removing bugs
• getting stuff from high shelves
• opening jars
• holding the purse in public
• loading the car
• driving the car
• putting lipstick/cell phone/keys/wallet in pockets when going out

This is, of course, an incomplete list, and is not universal, but this is the stuff that I do, my friends do, and that my Dad has always done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, it’s just that I finally saw the pattern. And to be honest it does make me feel like a man to load the car before a long trip.

As a kid, the way I remember it, was that on the day after Thanksgiving all of a sudden you would see the Christmas stuff appear in the stores. Then, as I got older, I remember being offended when the Christmas stuff started appearing before Thanksgiving. Recently, Christmas stuff has made its debut just after Halloween, but THIS IS THE LAST STRAW! Just LAST WEEK I saw an entire area of red and white, and ornaments and little Santas at Macy’s! Not only is it not Thanksgiving OR Halloween yet, but IT’S NOT EVEN OCTOBER!!!

What’s going on here?!? Are retailers really that desperate, or is this a sign of the disintegration of modern society and the onset of Armageddon? I mean really… September is the start of Christmas? Come on! We’re not even in the same financial quarter as Christmas yet. Maybe I’m getting cranky at an early age, but I think this is SICK and WRONG.

For those of you who are in an accelerated holiday state, you may have already started thinking about pumpkin carving. If so, I can be of service. I have amassed some pumpkin carving tricks and tips for the betterment of mankind. And please… let’s all try to remember that there are still two major holidays BEFORE we get to Christmas.