Thursday, March 16, 2006

Some Of My Best Friends Were Women

My friend, Lochru, the three hundred year old (give or take a century) Druid, phoned me last night. “I have a bone to pick with you,” he said as soon as I answered.
“Well, hello to you, too,” I replied caustically. “What have I done now?”
“I have to admit, I’m somewhat disappointed in your mysoginistic attitude,” he said.
“Excuse me,” I replied.
“Excuse you?” he asked.
“Yes, you’ll need to excuse me while I look the word up in my dictionary. How do you spell it?” I asked.
“A misogynist,” Lochru said, “is one characterized by a hatred of women.”
“Well, that’s not me,” I responded, somewhat defensively. “I love women. At least some of them.”
“Well, you could certainly fool me, based on your recent blogs,” he answered.
“I think you’re totally off-base,” I replied, even more defensively.
“Well one day you’re blasting fat women, the next day you seem to be obsessed with women who are obsessed with their doctors. Need I go on?” Lochru says.
“Just because I’m not fond of them, doesn’t mean I hate them,” I say.
“You have some serious issues,” Lochru tells me.
“One Druid’s opinion,” I retort. “Actually, I have great respect for women. In fact, one of my bosses is a lady.”
Before he could reply, who should pop her head in my door, but Cheryl, our vice-president. “Speak of the devil,” I say to Lochru. “Here’s my lady boss, whom I deeply respect, right now.”
“Steve, I need to see you now in my office,” Cheryl demands.
“Be with you in a minute, Hon,” I reply. “I’m on the phone. Be a dear and grab me a cup of java, will you?”
I hate interruptions when I’m on the phone. So, I quickly get back to my old Druid pal. “Cheryl and I have a great relationship,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I can tell,” he says. “But, hey, I want you to help me understand something.”
“Be glad to help,” I say. I’m always there to lend a helping hand.
“What’s with the R-Braves and Doug Wilder?” he asks. “Who is at fault on this one.”
“Well,” I reply, “Wilder says he’s done so much to help the Braves and they just don’t seem to appreciate him.”
“Yeah,” Lochru says. “Wasn’t he the one who sandbagged their move to Shockoe Bottom?”
“Listen, my old friend,” I say, somewhat condescendingly to Lochru, ”You’re out of the loop. You just don’t understand. Doug Wilder knows what’s best for everyone. If he had thought a move to Shockoe would have been in the team’s best interests, he’d have made it happen.”
“So,” Lochru replies, “a move to a vacant lot in the slums is in their best interest?”
“If Doug Wilder says it is, then it must be,” I reply innocently.
“Well, listen, pal,” he says. “The arrogance of you people is going to cost you a great minor league operation.”
“What do you care about minor league baseball,” I ask him.
“Steve, my poor little naïve friend,” he says, “to you barbarians, it’s just a game. To us Druids, it was one of our greatest fertility rituals. And, you know how much I like them fertility rituals.”
“This is a conversation I don’t think I want to have,” I tell Lochru, “Especially with a thawed out Druid.”
“Just because there’s snow on the roof, don’t mean there’s no fire in the furnace,” he sneers. Did I ever tell you about Aoifa, the Druidess priestess? Wow, if anybody knew how to wear a ritual robe!”
I gently put the phone on the cradle. And he calls me a misogynist.