MANLAND: Cultural Notes

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay at home." - James A. Michener

You've heard the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Well, let's not declare horses as senators or throw Christians to the lions, but it is a good rule of thumb to follow when you're in a new place, so let's acquaint ourselves with male "culture" for our visit to Manland.

Days of the Week:
Monday: Monday night football
Tuesday: 6 days until Monday night football
Wednesday: 5 days until Monday night football
Thursday: 4 days until Monday night football
Friday: 3 days until Monday night football
Saturday: 2 days until Monday night football
Sunday: 1 day until Monday night football

Man's weekly calendar is not to be questioned or revised by tourists in any way, shape, or form.

Months of the Year:
January: The month Man growls at his credit card bill due to the preceding months holiday expenditures.
February: The month Man buys Valentine's Day gifts for you that you can't return because he lost the receipts.
March: The month Man pretends to be Irish so he has an excuse to stumble around drunk off his but for a 24-hour period.
April: The month Man finds, and consumes, all the Easter eggs you hid for the children.
May: The month Man is forced to buy his mother flowers.
June: The month Man buys his father the same tie he's been buying him since he was 6 years old.
July: The month Man inevitably blows off the tip of his finger playing with fireworks.
August: The months Man's armpits stink to high heaven even though he has showered.
September: The month Man begins talking about the Super Bowl.
October: The month Man dresses in a ridiculous costume and begs for candy from strangers.
November: The month Man devotes all of his attention to a turkey dinner and the Dallas Cowboys kickoff schedule. (This is not unlike my personal itinerary of November)
December: The month Man insists on decorating the entire house with bright lights and reindeer statues that are bigger than the neighbor's.

Important Dates in Man's History:
February 6, 1985: Babe Ruth is born.
August 5, 1960: Congress approves the birth control pill.
February 22, 1980: The USA hockey team defeats Soviet Union in the Olympics.
September 1, 1995: The Sony Playstation is released in the U.S.
April 1997: Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's sex tape is released to the public.
June 28, 1997: Mike Tyson bites Evander Holyfield's ear.
February 1, 2004: Janet Jackson exposes her nipple at Super Bowl XXXVIII
March 2009: Justin Bieber is discovered and is the most adorable thing the media has ever seen and gives Man a run for his money. (Cute, romantic songwriter, perfect hair...yeah if only he had muscles and wasn't a minor..a girl can dream.)

The Four Seasons:
Baseball Season
Hockey Season
Football Season
Basketball Season

Telling Time:
Common dialogue concerning time in Manland, you are likely to hear this is both formal and casual situations.
Woman: "What time is it?"
Man: "I dunno, look at the clock."

Currency:
Fortunately for budget travelers, money is not the preferred currency in Manland. Instead, the citizens of Manland have developed a complex system of exchange in order to better suit the needs of their society. Please see the list below for common bartering details.

What you want: A foot massage
What is costs: A beer in a frosted glass, hand delivered

What you want: Man to take out the trash
What it costs: Flash your boobies once

What you want: Man to take out the trash without complaining
What it costs: Flash your boobies twice

What you want: A full body massage
What it costs: A full hour of complete silence

What you want: Man to load the dishwasher
What it costs: Tickets to a local football came

What you want: Man to drive your mother to the airport
What it costs: Tickets to the super bowl

What you want: Man to cancel poker night
What it costs: Sex with no cuddling afterwards

What you want: Man to watch a chick flick with you
What it costs: A year's subscription to Maxim magazine

What you want: Man to stop acting like an idiot
What it costs: You to stop nagging at him for 5 minutes

What you want: Man to throw out all his porno tapes
What it costs: You to start doing everything the chick in the porno tapes does

What you want: Man to put the toilet seat down
What it costs: You to take up pole dancing

The Metric System:
1 inch = 2.6 man inches (wink, wink)

Manland Cars & What They Mean:
Candy-apple-red-sports-car: "I have a small penis, and an even smaller brain."
Convertible: "I am carefree, and this is totally my own hair."
Hybrid: "I am environmentally aware, and possibly gay."
Minivan: "I have 20 kids and a fat wife."
Chevy with a gun rack: "I am looking to settle down with my cousin and live off the land."
Hummer: "I don't give an ass rats about the environment, and I can't park this thing for the life of me."
Bicycle: "I have no money, but great hamstring muscles."

Occupational Hazards:
Accountant: Not the most exciting of conversationalists, but handy to have around come tax season.
Architect: Detail-oriented, nostalgic, and obsessed with measuring everything.
Attorney: Wealthy, intelligent, and totally impossible to win an argument with.
Ballet Dancer: Incredibly flexible and prone to trying on your clothes when you're not home.
Banker: Always has cash in his wallet, but suffers from an unnatural fear of ski masks.
Dentist: Enjoys causing other people pain, but has made it socially acceptable to wear white after Labor Day.
Flight Attendant: Gay..don't bother.
Interior Decorator: Very popular with flight attendants.
Massage therapist: Very touchy feely, and a borderline male prostitute.
Novelist: A raging alcoholic, but knows what a semicolon is, and importantly, how to use it!
Police officer: Protects and serves, unless there is a glazed pastry around.
Real Estate Agent: Knows all the great neighborhoods, and would sell his mother for a 3 percent commission.
Teacher: Patient, smart, and always has a number 2 pencil on hand.

Manland Sightseeing Itinerary:
The Bathroom:
The Manland bathroom is a scientists wet dream. A bevy of bodily fluid samples, single-cell organisms, and remnants of good-smelling hygiene products all seem to coexist in this petri dish of a locale. The sights and smells emanating from the Manland bathroom are unlike those in any other region of the world.

The Strip-Club:
This is where man enjoys mediocre food, watered-down drinks, bad music, and giant fake breasts. This is where you are most likely to observe Man performing one of the basic male functions: humping. Humping the tables. Humping the waitresses. Humping the stage. Do not be afraid. This is completely normal behavior and in this particular region is encouraged.

The Gym:
This is where Man goes to bulk up, give the appearance of bulking up, or watch members of the opposite sex watch Man bulk up. You will see: Man kissing his biceps, admiring his abs in the mirror, Man sweating all over the equipment and leaving it there in a puddle for the next person to clean up, and lots of growling.

Beverages:
As a general rule of thumb, Man will suck down any beverage that contains alcohol, caffeine, or sugar.

Eating Out (go ahead, laugh, it's funny):
When dining out with Man you must:
1. Talk with your mouth full.
2. Shovel more food into your mouth before you are finished chewing what's already in there.
3. Do not use the utensils provided by your server. Man was born with built-in utensils: thumb, pointer finger, middle finger.
4. Avoid any food that is certified organic or anything found in nature. If you must eat something healthy, slather it in some kind of fatty sauce, Man's topping of choice is Cheez Whiz.
5. Burp in between every course.

Tomorrow, we will decode MANSPEAK: The language of MANLAND. Stay tuned - this will be fun :)

Introducing..drum roll please..MANLAND.

NATIONAL STATISTICS:

National flower: Poison Ivy
National motto: "Huh?"
First settler: Adam
National threat: Woman
National ally: Dog
Natural resource: Gas
Population: Overpopulated
Average IQ: Depends on Man's sobriety
National dish: Pizza
National beverage: Beer
National sports: Anything that involves grunting, sweating, and broken limbs.
National tribal wear: Pit-stained T-shirt circa 1990, sweatpants that used to be gray, but are now light black, and sneakers that used to be white, but are now gray.

"The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff." - Britney Spears

A travel guide makes a trip to a foreign country, well, not so foreign. And amazingly, from South Africa to the North Pole, from Australia to some godforsaken dot on the globe called Tuvalu, there is a handbook out there for every exotic destination imaginable. Except one: the most frightening, mysterious, and dangerous country of all. Manland.

For centuries, women have been expected to navigate their way through the vexing jungle of the male species without so much as a compass to guide them. We have lost our minds trying to decipher the male heart, psyche, body language, and dating customs. Well, help is on the way, this blog series will demystify the testicle-bearing gender once and for all. No more over-analyzing EVERYTHING, ladies! You are about to learn what makes Man tick and what ticks Man off. 

PACKING CHECKLIST:

1. Hand sanitizer

2. A case of Lysol

3. A yoga mat and whatever meditative mantra you employ when you feel yourself going insane

4. Extra strength Excedrin

5. Disposable toilet seat covers

6. A fully charged cell phone with 911, your shrink, and mother all on speed dial

7. Flats for when you need to make a quick escape, and high heels for when you're going for that whore look

MAN'S ORIGIN:

On the seventh day of the first week in history, God created the Garden of Eden. At first, the place wasn't much to look at, so God added some nice foliage, a couple of fluffy animals, a giant waterfall, a canyon, and a few rock formations here or there. But something was missing, there was not one to enjoy the garden (or trim the hedges). So God breathed life into Man, an odd-looking creature with a furry back and receding hairline. God named this creature "Adam", though truth be told, Adam actually looked more like a "Chuck". However, much to God's disappointment, Adam/Chuck didn't really do much once he was created. He just moped around in the garden day and night, muttering to himself because there was no cable television or Doritos. He refused to put on clothes, arguing that boxers didn't give him "enough support", and briefs made him feel "restricted". It wasn't long before God realized he had screwed up big time. Clearly, Adam/Chuck was incapable of functioning by himself. He was a body without a brain. Already feeling pangs of guilt for creating the completely illogical platypus, God removed a rib from Adam/Chuck and fashioned a new and improved version of Man: Woman. God named her "Eve", though truth be told, she looked more like a "Petula". He presented Eve/Petula to Adam/Chuck and he thought she was a hottie. Eve/Petula taught Adam/Chuck how to talk, think, turn a fig leaf into a haute couture, and reheat leftovers. She even managed to spruce up the Garden of Eden and it made the cover of "Only Home & Garden" magazine. 

DEPARTURE:

For some insight before you get off the plane to Manland, verse yourself in some common phrases and their meanings:

That's very interesting = I have no idea what you just said because I wasn't listening

I'm close with my mother = I live with my mother

I'm an entrepreneur = I am unemployed

Let's take this slow = I'll count to three before I grab your left breast

I don't want to pressure you = I'm giving you five more minutes, then I'm outta here

I love you = I don't want to use a condom when we have sex

Let's keep the wedding small = Let's not invite your friends

I do = There's really no way to get out of it at this point

Consider the Steam Blown

I made the mistake of uttering the phrase "today just can't get any worse" this morning. Life, as she was climbing on her high horse ,responded with "I accept your challenge" - and so I bellyache..

I HATE.. (Yes, I'm going there.)

Sour food.
Salty food.
Roger Goodell.
Women driving while talking on the phone.
Women driving.
Horror movies.
The Packers.
Being late.
Bad haircuts.
MSN.
Being unable to sneeze.
I hate when people say "they really need to write a book about my life". Whoever they is needs to be shot. Your life is lame, and reading about it will give my eyes gonorrhea. 
Charismatics holding their hands in the air.
Scavenger hunts.
Fondue sets. Yay, swiss communal germs and molten cheese. Ain't nothin' fon about it.
Godaddy.
People who say "yes, but..".
Mimes, fan fiction, and tracing paper. The lowest form of each genre.
The price of first class air tickets.
Tyra Banks.
God I hate Tyra Banks.
When people don't understand sarcasm. Though I'm glad you took it as a compliment, I was actually trying to tell you you're a twatknuckle. 
The fact that my blogger dictionary didn't acknowledge twatknuckle as a word.
Americans pronouncing Ob/Gyn as if it's an acronym.
Sitcom series DVD covers where all the actors are clustered together grinning blandly, totally ignoring their in-show personalities.
When you can't tell if someone is male or female. 
Losing pen caps.
Nasal office secretary women with snarky attitudes. In fact, all people who speak like they have a permanently bunged up nose.
Somalians.
Racists.
The concept of unemployment benefits.
Men who insist on sitting with their legs spread wide like they have got something there.
And democrats. If you voted for Obama in '08 to prove that you're not a racist, I suggest you don't in '12 to prove you're not an idiot.


That should do it. I feel much better. Beer me.