Spaceship Noises and the women who won't tell their kids to can it

I was going to write about how stupid boys are. The only problem is, I really like them. Men, that is. I hate stupid punks who think they need to blare their music on 11 at 3 a.m. These are the same punks who, two Halloweens ago, smashed my pumpkin that I spent 3 hours carving with my daughter. That really pissed me off. But those punks are in like, the seventh grade. I want to talk about men. Men who kill bugs and fix things. Men who move large objects for you. Men who smell so incredibly good even after they've been working for eight hours. Luckily, I have many good men in my life. There are a couple who are allegedly in love with me. That feels good even though I'm pretty sure they're nuts. They have yet to move any large objects for me, though. Then there is the One I'm totally in love with. Don't worry, Men Who Are Allegedly In Love With Me, he doesn't know I'm alive. How can that be, you say? I hear that subtlety is really not my best attribute, but I've really done a good job of keeping this thing under wraps. I think. Then I have my Internet Men. Men who I met in a certain room we'll just call Ocrisis. I only call it that because in the past, there have been some drama-mongers in the bunch. I really think we've got that problem under control. At least for now (oh please I hope). So anyway, it's not like I met these men randomly through IM or anything and they were all "Hey baby, nice pic." Those guys are annoying. Please, don't ever be that guy. Anyway, it was in a group setting and we just talk and goof off and sometimes, those acquaintances spin off into actual friendships. Just like the Jeffersons spun off of Archie Bunker. Some of them I co-watch TV with. Some of them I make fun of other people in Ocrisis with. Some of them I email all day long making fun of TV and Ocrisis.

So, I'm in a restaurant having dinner with my daughter tonight (this has a point, I swear, just go with me here), and there was this little boy. Maybe four years old or so. He kept making these really really loud spaceship noises the WHOLE TIME! At first I was like, is this kid not getting on his mother's nerves? Because he sure as hell is getting on mine. I turn around to check it out only to discover that his mother was not trying at all to shoosh him. As a mother, the first thing I think is, Man, if that was my kid....Then I got on this random train of thought (shocking for me, I know) about how this kid is going to grow up into one of those punks who smashes precious pumpkins. Then he's going to grow up into one of those punks who gets 27 inch woofers in his car to piss off old people (like me). But then he'll probably go off to college and end up like my Internet Man Mark. Mark is the most perfect human I've never met. He lives a good solid 1200 miles away and we'll probably never meet, but he never fails to make me laugh. I keep an article he wrote pinned up in my cubicle for when I'm so mad and frustrated I can't think straight. After I was done thinking about how wonderful Mark is, I realized that Mark was probably a lot like that spaceship kid when he was little. But cuter. So alas, hope was restored for all the pumpkin smashing, 27-inch-woofer-having punks of the world. I mean, I know that not all punks grow up to be witty, smart, very good smelling men. Some of them just grow up to be jerks. And I hate jerks. (Especially the jerks at Bravo who pushed back West Wing to midnight on the East Coast. I don't really care, but Internet Man Sevi cares a lot). Maybe another night, when I'm not so enamored with the members of the opposite gender, I'll have a column just on how much I hate jerks. But for now, it's all about how wonderful men are for all the dinners they buy and doors they open. And how giddy they get over fantasy baseball (something I will never ever understand) and their strange obsessions with motorized vehicles and electronics. I love you all! Except the jerks. I still hate you.