The Brown Skirts

When it comes time for a young man to venture out into the world he can do one of two things. He can barge out, full throttle, raring to take flight. Or he can bumble his way into oblivion and hope not the make too much of a mess of things. Which one is right remains to be seen.

Benny went to work. And he came home. And he fed his cat. Well, his cats. Well, cat. It felt like more than one. It ate as much.

He imagined his cat, Herman, talking to him. “You know, Benny. You should get out more. Or get in less. Either way, what are you doing here? Just feeding your fat cat?”

Benny was confused. Even his cat condemned him.

He worked in IT. Not for Google. But for some other tech giant. Giggle, maybe. He didn’t punch in every day, nine to five, and didn’t have a schedule. He could work at home! What fun. Work and not see people at the same time! A role player’s dream.

One non-day Benny was in the non-office. At non-work, in other words. He happened across a coworker.

“Hi, Ben,” she said.

Ben said Hi and brushed his hand across her shoulder, with a smile. She pulled out her iPhone and started to click.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Oh. I’m adding you to my MeToo app,” she said. “Every time I get assaulted. I’ve got a whole database on every man I know. Can’t be too careful, you know.”

“I… know…” said Benny, bewildered. He just thought he was being friendly.

“At the end of the month I decide which ones I will report on.”

“Girls will be girls.”

“That counts as one,” she said, and added another click.

Benny wondered how long it will take to get away from her. That’s probably an assault, too.

“Do you know that a woman is assaulted every 1.3 seconds?” she said.

“You’d think she’d learn.”

“And that the average woman has a PTSD level of 5.3 on the Richter scale?”

Benny didn’t know that earth quakes happened in women’s heads, but he wasn’t surprised.

“And that the average recovery time is never? Women never recover from the shock and trauma they feel from the unwanted finger feeling of a man?”

Benny was sympathetic. And grossed out at the same time. And wished this would end. But she continued.

“And that women are forced to wear wedding bands, which come from the Nordic tradition of chaining women to the kitchen stove? Now the abomination has been symbolically sealed in the wedding ring to let women know their place.”

“But men also-“

And don’t get me started on high heels!”

“OK. I won’t.”

“Men have to realize that there are consequences for their actions.”

“Like Garrison Keeler?”

“Garrison Feeler!”

“But no due process?”

Ellie looked confused.

“Look, Ellie. Thank you for your sociological proctology exam. I feel much purged all of the sudden. I think I’ll just get my coffee and kill myself, OK?”

“Glad we had this little talk.”

“Ya. Glad.”

Later, Ellie had to get something from Benny in his soul crushing and mind flushing cubicle.

“Hey, Ben,” she said.

“Hey, El,” he answered. “Got any more girlsplaining to do to me?”

“Lots. And don’t call me a girl. But for now I just need some help on the Legs project.”

“Oh, the nuclear football?”

“Touchdown!”

“OK. What’s up?”

“Well, Legs is supposed to give a leg up, get it, for young girls so we can reverse the patriarchal preference of boys over girls for everything that doesn’t require those legs for some other purpose.”

“Like walking?”

“And wrapping them around a pole.”

“You do that a lot?”

Ignoring. “Girlgle, as we in the know like to call her, has a program set up to specifically weed out bad sperm from their working environment.”

“Isn’t that ‘bad eggs?’”

“That’s sexists.”

“But bad…”

“So. We are going to implement much the same thing here.”

“Wait. Is this about the engineer who was fired?”

“Male engineer.”

“Ya. He was fired for expressing an opinion.”

“The wrong opinion. Opinions are dangerous! We can’t allow me-people to think for themselves. Look what that has done? Thousands of years of the worst sort of abject slavery for women everywhere. “

“I think real slaves might dis-”

“So,” She had a habit using ‘So’ as a means of shutting people up. Oddly, other women as well.

“So. The new Legs app will monitor and record routine type information that any work place might find beneficial. Coffee breaks. Water cooler corralling. Coworkers comingling in too friendly a manner.”

“Football lotteries?”

“Precisely. When we see me-um-people engaging in these activities we will just note them. Not that we are forbidding them, of course. We understand that everyone has to have some pressure release time during the day.”

“And knowing that Big Sister is watching will help release that pressure?”

“It’s normal. Nobody will care. And they won’t know about it, either.”

“A man may work from sun to sun but a woman’s work is never done?”

“That’s sexist. And true. And sexist. I should report you to the Ministry of Manhating.”

“The…”
“Forget I said that. Better, never thought I said that in the first place.”

“Oooooo-Kkkkkkk.”

“So we need ten database servers, twenty web servers, and server support for the whole mess.”

“I’ll get the resources from Google.”

“Girlgle.”

“Sure. Gargle.”

“And I counted every time you looked at my boobs.”

Benny went home and hanged himself in his mind. Herman was amused.