One of the few munificent gifts of aging is having sufficient free time to ponder.

That’s ponder, with and ‘O’. Not pander with an ‘A’. That’s a topic for another time and a less cerebral thinker than your writer.

A brilliant comic/author named Mark Gungor does a stand-up routine on the differences between the male and female brain. (If you haven’t seen it on YouTube, I suggest you Google him. It’s hilarious.) In his analysis he correctly points out that the male brain consists of numerous little boxes into which men constantly retreat. i.e.: one for his job, one for his wife, one for golf, one for football, one for the kids, etc. etc. You get the idea, right?

Good.

Now, in Mark’s typical male brain there is a special box: one with absolutely nothing in it! And we men spend an inordinate amount of time in that box. I know I do. And I like it there.

So here I am at six p.m., drink in hand, sitting on the back terrace of a fifth floor condo overlooking the vastness of the Indian River Lagoon in Florida while Manatees frolic in the water below. (I’m also naked, but that’s irrelevant.) The TV is squawking in the background.

A breathless news bunny is discussing sex on campus like she had just discovered the next Hubble Galaxy. To follow this woman’s xenophobic logic, we are to conclude that all sex on campus is rape. She focuses exclusively on college. (My guess is she doesn’t know there is now sex happening in high schools – and in West Virginia, even in kindergarten.) Her position seems to be that students must now get permission from a potential partner before engaging in foreplay which we all know is the slippery (no pun) slope to intercourse. Some New England women’s colleges even insist on written permission slips. The result – a ‘perfect storm’ of confusion for males.

Attention notaries – This will create a looming boom for you egg heads if this trend goes viral.

My cerebral college days seem titillating by comparison with today. I guess time has a way of erasing the good memories as well as the bad.

But I digress. Upon hearing this dispiriting news I switched off the TV and retreated to my warm and inviting “nothing box” to ponder the meaning and consequences of this revelation (revolution). There are always Unintended Consequences of every act: political or sexual.

I mean – if the girl is not consenting – what to do? Any port in a storm, as sailors used to say. Now, with the advent of Siri and GPS, in the face of a storm they can simply change course which may explain the explosion of gay sex.

Unintended Result: Not enough men to go around, ladies.

And girls from New England schools, typically scoring low on the pulchritude scale, may become old maids. Beware ladies. You know not what you’ll reap if you don’t sow those wild oats while you’re still fertile.

Maybe next week I’ll tackle the trans-gender phenomenon. It’s amazing what one can ponder in an empty box .

From inside the box, you are welcome.

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