SAA Epi.# 71: Doily Angst

I’ve blogged here before about how I’m kind of one of the guys.  Back in college when I had a lot of single guy friends, I felt way more comfortable hanging out with a group of them than I did with a group of girls.  I’d rather watch “The Matrix” than a chick flick (unless it’s “While You Were Sleeping” featuring mid-90’s version Bill Pullman.  And his hair).  I’d rather do guy stuff than girl stuff.

 That’s not to say that I’m not girly.  I mean, I have a ribbon collection.  A ribbon collection, I tell you.  With ribbons. 

 

I like colors.  I like new dresses.  I like tea parties.  I like glitter.  I like kitties.  I love flowers, and I’m stoked that the current fashion trends allow for (and even encourage) big poofy flowers.  Seriously, when the trend finally fades away, I’m still going to keep wearing big poofy flowers.  It’ll be like back in the 80s when I got made fun of for wearing bell bottoms with disco roller skate patches.  Eventually, I succumbed to the tight rolling, but not because I liked it.  I fell into the whole peer pressure racket.  But no more.  Never again. 

 

They may take away my bell bottoms, but they will NEVER take my POOFY HAIR FLOWERS!!!!!  AAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

 Yeah.

 And now that I’m older and all the guys I know are married, I have been forced to hang out with other ladies more.  I’ve found that they’re pretty cool, too, in small doses.  And just so long as they don’t force me to watch some Kate Hudson flick about feelings.

 See, the thing is, I think that whenever you get too much estrogen together in an enclosed space, bad things happen.  It’s probably also dangerous to have too much testosterone together in an enclosed space, but the consequences are very different.  For instance, if you get a bunch of guys together, there might be a bar fight.  Bar fights, from what I’ve surmised from watching non-chick flick movies—and my favorite episode of the original Star Trek, “The Trouble With Tribbles--are whimsical events involving 1) alcohol, 2) Irish fiddle music, 3) lots of guys hitting each other and throwing each other around for no apparent reason.  There might be a black eye or two, but it’s all in good fun.  A day or two later, after the swelling goes down and the hangovers wear off, everyone is friends again. 

 But when you get a room full of women together and their estrogen mingles, terrible things happen.  Perfectly innocent flowers, which could have been used to make future fashionably questionable hair accessories, become table arrangements.  Glitter, which could have been put to nobler use, is scattered upon a table top.  In fact, this glitter is now sold in packages purposed only to be scattered upon tabletops.  It’s name?  Table Scatter.  The horror!  And don’t get me started on doilies.

 Uh oh.  You got me started on doilies.

 Doilies.  They're lace soaked in malice and coated in evil.  First off, what’s with the word “doily?”  It’s like someone wanted to make the sissiest sounding name in the world.  If I didn’t know what a doily was and someone just randomly said, “Doilies don’t make good frisbees,” I’m pretty sure I’d know what they were talking about.  The very name sounds like a flimsy lace thingy that doesn’t serve any particular purpose besides making things look ridiculously feminine. 

 Ok, so not all doilies are bad.  My former roommate had a doily.  I didn’t hate it.  I didn’t like it.  I was indifferent to it.  It was a non-threatening doily.  It sat on my little round table underneath the lamp and minded its own business.  I wish all doilies were like this.

 But no.  Most doilies are vicious.  They are vicious in ways that only purposeless, overly-feminine, estrogen-overdose-induced things can be.  These are the doilies that don’t sit neutrally under a lamp in the comfort and safety of my own home.  These doilies make themselves known.  They garnish the tables of women’s events at churches.  They demand your attention, saying, “Behold!  I am a doily!  I exude femininity, and if you are a woman, you must love me, or else be SHUNNED!" 

 

I’m onto you, evil doily scum.  I GRR at you.

 Every time I see a doily advertising a women’s event, it makes me angry.  Why?  It’s the implication that all women have to like frilly things.  In my mind, it all leads to the implication that all women are the same and have to like the same things.  When there’s a woman’s event, I have to like it and attend it because I’m a woman.  When some syrupy voiced woman starts talking about women’s issues in Scripture, I have to both relate to and agree with everything she says (no matter how weak the theology).  Well, guess what.  I don’t like Beth Moore studies, and I don’t care who knows it.  I can’t stand listening to that Proverbs 31 Ministries woman who has these 30 second blurbs on KLOVE radio.  I don’t like women’s retreats.  I don’t like getting my nails done or…~shudder~…massages.  I don’t like recipe swaps.  I DON’T LIKE NO STINKIN’ DOILIES*.

 Ahem.

 Yeah, so, um, yeah…I’m knitting a lot these days.  I’m, uh, making some scarves for a Women’s Expo at my church.  It’s happening in October.  There’s going to be a lot of estrogen there.  And maybe a few doilies. 

 Me?  I’m selling scarves, not doilies.  Scarves.  And also hair flowers.  Come buy one and in a few years, when they’re as fashionable as bell bottoms in the late 1980s, wear it and think of me.

 

*Please note that I’m not saying that it’s wrong for people to like doilies.  If you like doilies and/or any of the other feminine stuff I “hated on” in this blog, don’t stop liking it on my account.  You see, I was once pressured into the silly habit of making the hem of my pant legs adhere as closely to my leg as humanly possible, even though it made me look like a pale, short, long haired version of M. C. Hammer; I don’t want to pressure anyone.  I’ve just found that some doilies seem to be more than the innocent pieces of lace that they appear to be.  I just want to reveal the truth.  The truth about doilies. 

 

What you do with that truth is up to you.