The Mass of Men Lead Lives: Ad Astra Per Alia Porci - to the stars on the wings of a pig

(Old Blog from another website I posted in April)

Let's just say it has been an interesting month. Strike that…that's a huge understatement. April was the crappiest month I have had in many years. Just name something bad that could have happened, IT HAPPENED! Family issues, baby issues, health issues, employment issues, money issues, school issues, etc. If karma is legitimate, then I must have been Attila the Hun in my previous life, 'cuz something cosmic has got it out for me I am certain. I need to take out a butane tank and shoot it.

Gals…Don't try to understand. When a guy gets to feeling this way, we can't talk it out, a self-help book won't suffice, no Rorschach ink blot test will diagnose. We have to get out of the house and burn something, shoot something, blow something up. If we don't, we just might evolve more and more into one of those metrosexuals that society is so into right now…and you don't want that. Here is why.

A girl once told me, "There is one thing that men and women will always agree on…never trust a woman". So you may think you want a man that is into pedicures and hair products, well think again. He just becomes more sneaky...he becomes your competition. When you find your tweezers for the fifth time this week lying next to nose hairs stacked like a cord of wood on the bathroom sink--be forewarned that next the nail file is missing, all the eye-brow wax is missing--then the pumis stone is wore out. Before you know it, your high heels are stretched a little too big for your feet…because your husband… (that Biatch, he didn't even ask!) was just curious how his calves look in your shoes. The only thing more difficult and competitive than the Mars/Venus thing is the Venus/Semi Venus thing. But I digress…

Manly men need to get out and vent in a destructive way. It's not a bad thing; call it Constructive Demolition if you will. We need to "Sound our barbaric yawp over the roof tops of the world". Luckily my wife knows this and she would rather let me go chase, stab, kill, burn, or blast things, than to wallow in my own quiet desperation or ruin another pair of her stilettos. Her only rule: be as far from the house as possible.

So I talked to an acquaintance last week and he pays me to take him and some of his colleagues out into the desert to teach them how to live off the land for 3 days. But he gets sick and his wife calls and cancels at the last minute...the pansy. So...What to do now.

I could have invited myself to go on a road trip that some of my friends must have 'forgotten' to invite me on weekend before last. Imagine their surprise if I climbed into their car at an Apache Junction on-ramp on their way out of town! Wait, when I said surprise, I actually meant horror. I guess the sight of me clambering in the window with a machete at my hip and me covered in blood and leaves from some shortcuts I took might be kind of shocking (By the way, why is there so much razor wire surrounding things in Apache Junction?! I mean, what are they protecting, it's just a reservation for white people!)

Even uninvited and slightly deranged, I know that my friends' annoyance would soon give way to resignation after an hour or two dozen. I used a similar tactic with dating. I called it "The Wear-Down"…how else does a guy like me get a knock-out wife like Tami? By being around so much that someone just gets use to your presence, no more like they get comfortably numb to your presence. Remember it…The Wear-Down. This would explain why when I proposed, Tami rolled her eyes and sighed, "Hhh-h-h-h...Fine."

But back to the venting thing. I needed to get away but I was stuck at home, where I am not aloud to exercise my philosophy of Constructive Demolition. My wife took pity though. Maybe it was the fact that she saw me slam dunking the kitchen trash into the trash dumpster…six times. Maybe it was me running around the house with her bra wrapped over my head with the cups over my ears like a biplane pilot, an arm load of sock-bombs, all this complete with propeller noises and the rattle of strafing machine gun fire. What ever it was, she took pity on me.

"Aaron, darling? What do you say we go camping up in the Bradshaw Mountains? It's old rugged mining country up in the pine trees. We can even rent some quads, go fishing, and cook in your Dutch ovens if you want." Suspecting a trap, like the last time she had me committed to Happy Acres Asylum, I looked to my right and then to my left to see if those burly guys dressed in white smocks with the big butterfly nets were hiding near by. With my innate ability to debunk any spousal tricks, and my absolute navigability and command of the English language…I unequivocally posed the question… "Huh?"

She told me about this little mining town called Crown King. I took off my bra-helmet now that she had my attention so that I could hear her better. Twenty some odd miles of washboards, you say. Main Street is a remote dirt road, Check. One gas pump in town, Liking it. Dodging quads when you cross the street, Even better. Scroungy natives, the smell of dust and oil, exploring mines, cooking in dutch ovens, Freakin Awesome! I mean this place is so far off the beaten path, that they don't even have a garbage service so you have to pack your trash up in bags and bring it back down the mountain. Sounds like America's version of Rocky Point to me!!! (Minus the big pool of whale and dolphin piss known as the Sea of Cortez, but that's another rant.)

So we went to Crown King last weekend with my in-laws and it was a blast. Seriously, a cool little living ghost-town if you are as into odd places as I am. It was surprisingly a nice get-a-way and I didn't have to break or destroy a thing. You might ask how my in-laws could stand being with me for 3 days and 2 nights. I already told you, it's called…"The Wear-Down".

And do you know what I did when I got back to the city, I slam-dunked the trash bags we brought down the mountain, but only did it once.