The Difference Between Boys and Girls--on a Saturday

Last weekend I spotted yet another difference between women and men that reminded me of why mentake life so much more easily than women.

I was up early and making the rounds in town--grocery story, copy shop, book store, and on and on.

The day was warm and bright, and I sat a moment and enjoyed the sunshine streaming through the sunroof on the final leg of my trek through town. While I enjoyed the warmth of the morning, I watched women filing into the Adam Broderick day spa. To a woman, they had on their corporate hair--dyed and coifed to geometric perfection lest they bump into a woman they knew at the spa, to which they had come to--what, relax? They had on their corporate clothes (nobody would call them slobs). They clutched their Vera Bradley bags--those lovely quilted sacks that suggest that even these cold, corporate female titans have changed a diaper or at least been in the room with a young person perhaps even as they have cut throats or done other necessary things to be able to afford these bags. How they marched with precision and determination into that spa. Like they had an interview with the executioner. These women scared the hell out of me. I locked my doors. I watched.

Alongside the spa is the liquor store that sells all kinds of crazy wines, including the cheap hooch I enjoy on a fairly regular basis. Into that establishment bounced men in their Saturday gear--way bagged out sweats, sneakers that could walk by themselves, sweatshirts that bore the remnants of last night's dinner, baseball caps that concealed some serious bed head. But they bounced. Into the booze shop and out again in a matter of minutes. They bounced.

For many, many, many dollars, these women would file out some time quite later feeling maybe a bit looser, more relaxed, more like the person they were before they needed to prove something over and over again to everybody. Whatever. They would pay for the thrill of being some part of themselves.

For the price of a case of beer or a few bottles of wine, the men came out in a matter of minutes with a brown bag and a spring in their step and a day ahead of them.

The. Whole. Day. Ahead. Of. Them. And they didn't know or care that they were noticed by anybody.

And that's it.

There is no huge statement here on narcicism, alcoholism, feminism. Rather, it's a celebration of my new faith, Saturdayism (that religion that celebrates that most unselfconscious of days, Saturday, as the day that tells us What It's All About.) I think it's about finding your inner boy, whoever you are.