The X X Factor

Mesclun spring lettuce mix, much like monogamy, is a concept forced upon men by the women in their life.  If you believe I am an immoral philistine for saying this then I suggest you ask the man in your life if he wouldn't prefer to be able to eat iceberg lettuce with Russian dressing.  Or to have iceberg lettuce on his sandwich.  I didn't even know how to spell mesclun until I googled mescalin.  Nor does blogger.com.  They also think I mean mescaline as evidenced by the appearance of the spell check squiggly line under every instance of mesclun in my draft.  Mesclun, mesclun, mesclun, mesclun.  You can't see it in the published version of this post but I am seriously messing with the spell check.  And by the way, I beseech you to not broach the other subject of this paragraph.

Leave No Trace might also be an idea started by a woman.  Men, as a general rule of thumb, don't like to clean up after themselves.   A simple concept like closing a gym locker door after you are done showering and changing seems to elude most of the men at my gym. Nor do they rinse their shaved whiskers out of the sink or wipe the seat after peeing through the slit in front.  I don't know what goes on in the girl's locker room but I bet the girls close their lockers and wipe the porcelain when they are done doing it.  It's the same in the backcountry.  I have known hiker girls who can spend an entire weekend in the woods without ever completing a number two.  Men on the other hand, feel the urge to poop 100 yards from the trail head (or maybe that's just me).  And there is usually no time to dig the proper 6 inch deep hole.  Some scratching in the leaves is about all we have time for.  I have been on plenty of climbs where the men are obsessed with every aspect of their bowel health including the frequency, color, consistency, smell, and how many blue bags they have left.  I have never once heard a woman mention her blue bag count or the need to even go number two for that matter.  A man could never have dreamt up the idea of leaving no trace, not even something so natural as a bowel movement.  It is a concept, I believe, that only a person who has never had to deal with a backcountry GI situation could dream up.  If putting the seat down doesn't occur to a man, how could carrying out his own feces and used toilet paper ever enter his thought process?

Putting ones clothes in a hamper, folding and putting away the newspaper after it is read, using a dish instead of eating right out of the pot, cleaning and drying dishes rather than leaving them in the sink until you actually need one, and indeed putting anything away at all (with the possible exception of tools), are concepts that could only have originated in the female brain.  Saying excuse me after burping or other expellation of gas, eating vegetables that are not fried, cheesy, or soaked in butter, closing the bathroom door, and putting on a clean pair of underwear on the remote chance you could end up in the ER are all behaviors passed down to the sons by their mothers. As I alluded to earlier, the only thing your Dad cared about was where the hell you left his screwdriver after fixing your skateboard and not leaving the lawnmower out in the rain.

What is this post about?  I have no idea except that while hiking to Eagle and Balsam Mountains this afternoon I came up with the first line of this essay and I thought it too clever to not share with you.