The Scene In Which I Laugh Every Time I Read This

For those of you who have never lived in Chicago, John Kass is a fairly hilarious columnist. This column was one that someone forwarded to me several years ago. I've recieved it a couple times since then. This morning, as I was cleaning out old emails I found a draft of it that I apparently meant to forward to someone (several years ago, truth be told!) and thought you'd appreciate the chuckle. I believe this first printed in 2002.


"MEMORY STUDY FORGETS THE MALE 'UH-HUH' FACTOR"
-John Kass

American universities are once again aggravating the heck out of me with another foolish study.

It belongs in the Women Remember Everything and Are Smarter than Men Department, as if men didn't know this already.

Neverthless, researchers at Stanford University were determined to rub it in.

The showed groups of women and men a series of photographs designed to evoke emotional responses, and the shrinks then used scientific gadgets to measure blood flow in the brain.

Pictures included fire hydrants, landscapes and a corpse- even a horrific bathroom scene. "A picture of a dirty toilet prompted a strong emotional response, especially from the women subjects," said a professor.

Men didn't get too worked up. I'm absolutely amazed.

Here are some of the findings:
1) Women have better memories than do men when it comes to emotional issues.
2) Women's brains allow them to recall these emotional issues with a finer degree of precision than do men, who really don't care.
3)Ergo, women remember spats with their husbands from 15 years ago and what their husbands failed to say, like "I'm sorry," and so it's always the guys' fault.

Which prompts me to offer my own conclusion: When it comes to remembering spats, men can't because we have tiny brains. And as we're being pelted by rememberances of things past, men's brains switch off involuntarily.

This prevents us from remembering what women told us. And women know when mens' brains have switched off because men say, "Uh huh, OK, yeah, uh huh," which infuriates them.

Clearly, the Stanford study is flawed. Though men dislike dirty tolets, women unfortunatley get stuck cleaning more of them because men are, well, selfish and evil.

And there are other flaws. For example, fire hydrants simply don't excite men.

Instead, they should have shown photos of a slice of Freddy's pizza in Cicero, the Chicago Bears logo, and a tasteful picture of Penelope Cruz.

The study "advances our understanding of the link between cognition and the underlying brain structure," researcher Diane Halprin said in a recent Associated PRess report.

Once she finished spewing shrink jargon, she got down to the fundamental issue: Women have infinitely finer memories for arguments than do their husbands.

"One reason for that is that a marital spat has more meaning for women, and they process it a bit more, "says Halprin.

They process it a bit more? Thats like saying China has a lot of Chinese people living there. As men sleep and snore, women lie awake at night, processing. They spring it on you when you're vunerable.

I've been with my lovely Sicilian bride for almost 20 years. And she teams up with my mom to remind me of what I can't remember.

Me: Hey! Let's go to the Sox game.

Lovely Sicilian: But we're all going to your cousin Nick's house for dinner.

Me: You didn't tell me. What cousin?

LS: Nick. We talked about it every morning this week. You kept saying, "Uh huh, OK, yeah uh huh."

Me: I don't have a cousin named Nick.

LS: Yes you do. Not the two Nicks from different restaurants, not the Nick the lawyer, not the Nick the bartender. The other Nick.

Me: Aw, can't we just go to the game?

LS: He married your cousin Angie. Not the Angie who's the artist. Not the Angie at the health club. The other Angie. We were at their wedding, remember?

Me: Of course not.

LS: We had an argument that morning. You wanted to go fishing instead, even though we RSVP'd. And you never apologized.

Me: When was that??

LS: Ten years ago this coming Saturday.

Me: You're making this up!

My Mom: No, she's not! I heard it. You agreed to go, and you said, "Uh huh, OK, yeah uh huh."

Me: I never said any such thing!

Mom: And in a fit of rage you demanded to go fishing, and you hurled a piece of toast with raspberry jam to the floor, scattering crumbs all about.

Me: Aieee!

LS: So there.

Mom: So there.

A few minutes ago, my wife called to warn me about today's column. She hates it when male columnists write about their wives, particularly when I do it.

"You're so unfair," sh said. "In these columns, you always play the child and I'm the mean adult and that's so untrue. And you always do it on slow news days."

Me: Really? I don't remember.

Ls: Yeah, there was the time when you were terrified of mice and the time that....

Me: Uh huh, OK, yeah uh huh.