Five reasons I would have a hard time being a woman

(1) You have to have nice handwriting: There are exceptions to this, of course, but they're relatively few and far between. Why is it that the vast majority of women have such nice handwriting? Do they work on it more in school? Is it genetic? My handwriting is terrible (or, as my buddy Chas Withers once put it, "your penmanship is atrocious"), so I'm jealous of anyone who writes neatly. Which means I'm jealous of roughly half the planet. That's not a good place to be.

(2) You're expected to wear funky shoes with unnatural heels: Who decreed that women are supposed to balance themselves on heels that are four inches high and a quarter-inch wide? I'm certain it was a man, and I'm certain he did it as a joke just to see how many women he could fool into actually trying it. Then, when the whole thing blew up and became a fashion trend, he was too embarrassed to admit he was kidding in the first place. I'll bet he laughs when he's on his way to the bank to cash another royalty check and sees a woman tottering down the street on one of his inventions.

(3) There are periodic biological occurrences that would annoy me to an amazing degree: You know what I'm talking about. Ugh.

(4) You don't make as much money: Not that I'm all about the dollars or anything, but it's hard to ignore the fact that, statistically, women don't make as much money as men. The figures vary from 77 cents on the dollar on the low end to as high as 91 cents if you control for various factors such as the fact that men tend to be over-represented in highly dangerous (and therefore higher-paying) jobs. If I was an ovary-bearing person, it wouldn't be so much about the money for me as it would be about the principle. I would get angry just thinking about it. Incidentally, there are those who would argue vehemently against the existence of this wage gap. I have heard their arguments and have yet to find any merit to them. But then again I'm no economist. And even if I was, I would make more money than female economists. Boys win! Boys win!

(5) The law says you cannot legally bash someone in the face with a hammer: There are jerks everywhere. And they represent both genders. But for whatever reason, women have to put up with a lot more from the male jerk population than vice-versa. Which I have to believe means I would be angry a lot of the time if I went through life as a woman. My instinct would be to hurt someone (I'm not proud of that, mind you), but for whatever reason, there is no provision in most local ordinance books for inflicting debilitating injury upon a deserving man-jerk. Ergo, my assumption is that women are in a constant state of checking themselves from committing first-degree felonies. That's gotta be tough...

The nobility of sports fandom

I actually had a little free time yesterday afternoon, which is a rarity, especially for a Sunday. I had a choice between two activities: Watching the Browns game, or pounding myself in the head repeatedly with a hammer.

In the end, I chose the Browns game, which I realized was more painful but also probably more of a character builder.

I was born a Browns fan. I grew up a Browns fan. I am a Browns fan now. I will always be a Browns fan, at least as long as there is a team of non-athletic individuals who wear orange helmets on Sunday afternoons in existence to root for.

For those who may not be football fans -- or sports fans in general -- you have to understand the utter futility of being a Cleveland Browns supporter. The Browns lose, and they lose a lot. Sometimes they lose in spectacular fashion. Other times they just lose in a mundane way, falling behind early and never really appearing to be playing the same sport as the opposing team.

The Browns have not won a championship since 1964. In fact, NO major Cleveland sports team has won a championship since 1964. I was born in 1969. I root for Cleveland sports teams. You do the math.

There was a time when the Browns were good, and I remember it well. For about 15 minutes in 1987, we were one of the best teams in the league. Not THE best team, mind you, but still one of the best. Did we ever actually win anything? Did we ever make it to the Super Bowl? Well, no, but we did get a lot of merchandising and marketing mileage out of calling the part of our stadium where the drunk fans sit "The Dawg Pound."

Why, then, do I put myself through this every Sunday during the football season? Because the Browns are my team. They represent my city. And I am NOT a fair-weather fan. There are many people in Cleveland who root for our hated rival, a team I dislike greatly and whose name I don't even like to type. Let's just call them the Spitsburgh Squealers.

I have no problem with people from Pittsburgh -- or Spitsburgh, whatever -- supporting the Squealers. They SHOULD. It's their team. But when you grow up in Cleveland and defect to them, no matter how successful they've been over the years, you are to be scorned. You have no backbone. You need to fast-forward to the 1:10 mark of this video for a better understanding of your true nature.

There is a certain honor in backing a perennial loser. There is strength of character that is to be praised. In supporting the athletic doormat, you show yourself to be loyal and true, a paragon of sports virtue.

Or at least that's what I want to believe. And because I'm doing the writing here, I declare it to be so. If you're looking for someone who deals in reality, you've come to the wrong blog, buddy.