'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

CRADLE-ROBBING MEN KIND OF CREEPY

More and more often these days I hear about men in their 50s who do something rather strange. On the verge of completing the process of raising their children, they suddenly decide, apparently because it was so much fun the first time around, to begin raising a whole new family.

These guys dump the women they’ve been married to for a quarter-century, hook up with someone who’s barely older than their college-age children, and start all over. Either these guys are taking Pfizer’s little blue pill, or they are taking, as my mother used to say, “stupid pills.”

I don’t know about you, but the whole thing strikes me as kind of creepy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that raising kids is bad. Raising our two daughters has been a joyful and fulfilling experience for my wife and me. It’s just that we started the process when we were in our 20s, not after we became members of AARP.

Just think of two different scenarios. First, a co-worker in his mid-20s comes into the office one day and announces, “Betty is pregnant! We’re going to have our first child!” Everybody is genuinely happy for them. Now think of this scene: a co-worker in his mid-50s comes into the office and announces, “Bambi is pregnant! We’re going to have our first child—well, at least HER first child.” Everybody forces a smile and says, “Gee, that’s, uh, terrific,” and then heads back to their cubicles with the classic, “Ewwww! I just ate a lemon!” look on their faces.

And why are the two reactions very different? Because it’s not normal. Guys in their 50s should not be marrying people who just received an invitation to a 5-year high school reunion. And these guys definitely should not be procreating.

It is not fair to young Bambi, who is almost certain to be a widow at a relatively early age. It’s not fair to the child who will spend his entire school career saying to his friends, “No, that’s not my grandpa picking me up from soccer practice. That’s my dad.”

And it’s definitely not fair to the man’s first wife, who probably had dreams of growing old together gracefully with him, but now only dreams that when her numbskull ex-husband is out driving around with Bambi in his new convertible sports car, a near-sighted bald eagle mistakes his fluttering toupee for a juicy muskrat and swoops down and impales its talons into Mr. Numbskull’s skull. The perfect conclusion to this daydream, I suspect, is when one of the eagle’s talons punctures Bambi in a strategic spot, causing a quart of silicone to leak out and leaving her most important assets noticeably lopsided.

I suspect at this point there might be some people out there who are offended by my comments—for example, any middle-aged man with a young wife, or any woman who was rendered lopsided by a myopic bird-of-prey, or for that matter, any person who can read. But be assured whenever I write a column my intention is never to offend anyone…unless there’s a chance it might get a laugh.

And of course, the last thing I want to do is make fun of a genuine loving relationship between a man and a woman—no matter how creepy it is.

So in the interest of being fair, because there are probably many cases when it makes perfectly good sense for a middle-aged man to marry a woman half his age, let me offer something positive about these situations.

Here are the nicest words I can think of: Ewww. Creepy.

©2006