Manholes
Happy Friday, friends. I’m working on a longer piece about the UFC, martial arts action movies of the 80s, and that fight on the lawn of the White House. But it isn’t ready yet, so I wrote this tiny little piece for you about manholes. This one falls under the category of “not serious but also very very serious.”
Thanks for being here.
Manholes
While walking at work yesterday I saw a manhole cover with the word “Communication” machine-stamped into the metal, which made me wonder if us men should use something other than our mouth-holes to communicate. Maybe facial expressions or body language or we carry signs. Maybe we write down what we want to say or act it out, maybe we walk a few miles first, before speaking.
Everywhere I look men are making metal-stamped pronouncements, communicating sewer-dark ideas. Men with too much money keep shouting they don’t have enough, vile men whose greatest dream is to make you believe someone else is taking everything. Men who wish to wage war, men who believe bigger is always better, men so stupid they don’t understand they own it all already. Small men, their mouths the size of manhole covers, their wallets even bigger than that, men whose only claim to manhood is having more than everyone else.
I say we should seal such men in the sewers. Better that than to allow their brand of masculinity to multiply. And afterward we should stamp our own foreheads with the words we find faith in, like friendship or hope or agape, that great big unconditional love we’re supposed to create for each other through our communications.
I think we have too many men communicating as is. I’d like to hear the calm voices of women, which are, in my experience, rarely machine-stamped. Never cast iron, but beautiful, like butterflies. Measured, like months, or the years they’ve spent holding us men together.
Instead we wobble on, wounding one another with our clamoring. We let the men who own the most manholes talk the loudest—we hear their clanging constantly. We hear what little hope their words hold. What little promise they offer, what little prospect they bring.
We hear what tiny empty little voices they have.
Which is why I prefer to sit in silence now, whispering these words of hope to you, hoping they find you. Hoping you are listening to my clarion call, hoping you have someone looking after you, hoping the men with big mouths will be followed by those with better minds, and morals.
Then we can all keep our manholes covered.
The way it should be.
While walking my dog yesterday, I literally thought to myself “why do those mf-ers in power use so many words to say so little? And so harmful?” (Yes, I use ‘mf-er’ when talking to myself.)
Happy Friday to you as well!
This reminded me of a comedian (whose name escapes me) who provided four rules to get along with your family/housemates during the 2020 shelter-in-place order:
Rule #1: Shut up.
Rule #2: Shut up.
Rule #3: Shut up.
Rule #4: Shut up.
Still trying to abide by all four rules.