The Secret Life of the Universe: other people's lives
I'd like to say a big hello to the unwashed masses that have once again tuned in for this week's installment of Understanding the Universe. Undoubtedly you have been on the edge of your seat waiting. Today we try to understand people in yet an other effort to understand the mystery of the nouns (which is in fact composed of multiple mysteries but is alway referred to as a singular mystery as per the post-post modernist handbook).
The best way to try to understand people is to put yourself in their shoes. It's a cliche sure but on occassion cliches are true, the obviously false ones more so (again in accordance with STUC and post-post modernist thought). Don't just imagine you are someone else become them. Go into their closet and steal their clothes, steal their identity, drive their car, read their dirty magazines, date their girlfriend, spend their money....all in an effort to understand them of course. Today I will suggest a type of person to put yourself in the shoes of for maybe a week or a month or 50 years depending on how much you value your time. Today I want you to get into the mind of :
The Furtive Arse Grabber
Arse grabbing is a centuries old tradition. It was started by Antonio De la Mecio in 1386. Antonio, or Tony as he was know to his friends, began this grand tradition when he jokingly compared his lover's buttocks to a pair of firm avocados. He gave the girl's posterior a gentle squeeze and the rest was history, the trend caught on like wildfire.
Since then men (the rather inferior opposites of women) have been classified into roughly two groups: The confident arse grabber and The furtive arse grabber.
The former type grabs his girlfriend's arse proudly in full view of the public. Sometimes they might go even as far as to put their hand in the back pocket of said lady's jeans. The tightness of jeans pockets often means that they cannot remove their hand even if they want to. In fact I've known of a couple of incidences of a hand being trapped well after the couple in question had broken up.
The furtive arse grabber on the other hand is a strange beast. Next time you are out in a crowded public place look for him walking with his girlfriend. He'll start off with an arm around her shoulder. Then you'll see his hand lightly, sensuously caress her back with the tips of his fingers. You may think "oh how sweet" but don't be fooled, his intended destination is further south, this is merely a pit stop while he gathers courage. Then comes the first attempt, his hand quickly, furtively taps the underside of her buttock. It rushes back to her back as if to say "oops sorry for that slight indiscretion, I meant to touch the small of your back....honest!". This process may repeat itself a number of times before he gets over his embarrassment and chances a proper grab or else his hand returns to the safety of her shoulder. The whole process is rather akin to testing the water of an unheated pool by dipping in your toes before getting in.
Somehow these furtive arse grabbers have themselves utterly convinced that their girlfriend is not going to notice their experiments in butt fondling hi-jinx. It's as if it is some secret adventure, some private inner struggle with his inhibitions that she will never be aware of. I for one wish their girlfriends would just put them out of their misery with a simple "don't touch my arse in public please" or "I don't mind if you touch my arse in front of the entire world". On the other hand it is rather funny to watch, let them suffer.
If you can understand what is going on in the minds of these men you will be elevated to the next level of consciousness: the basement. Understand their girlfriends and you will be transported half way to ground level. Continue in this way until you have "been" everyone in existence. Try a girl waiting in line at a deli, a tollway booth operator, a rock star, an obsessive compulsive who feels the need to sort whole crates of M&Ms by colour and weight to the nearest nanogram. Don't worry about dying before getting a chance to be everyone because you are effectively immortal as will be explained in a later article.
Tune in for the next episode in this series where I will talk about something entirely random in Understanding the Universe Part 5.
~Toblerone J. Aardvark~