MAYBE, BABY (A #Mancode Post)

It’s true. I make up words.


Mancode words.


Surely you remember Manesia. Who could forget Refrigeratoritis?


And now…MABY.


This one has been brewing for awhile now. It’s what happens your manly man, he who hammers, nails, plumbs, heave-hos, grunts, and flexes in the face of adversity, becomes a whining little baby when his widdle bitty throat hurts.


Ergo, MAN + BABY = MABY.


I have a MABY in my home as we speak. I’m not making fun (okay, maybe a little). He’s sitting on the sofa, wrapped in his favorite cozy soft blankey, wearing a decades-old turtleneck (his home remedy), drinking gobs of tea with honey and lemon, something I, of course, advocate. What I don’t appreciate are the calls for me to make him more, more, more (cause, what? his legs are broken?), or the fact that I’ve also got two actual real-life children to care for, as well as a deadline to meet.


My pleas for “Could you heat up a slice for the five-year-old while you’re in there?” go unheeded because apparently, hands attached to the sore throat don’t work for anything other than tea-making when the MABY is sick.


I understand. I do. I’m not that much of a bitch.


But here’s THE THING.


My throat hurts, too. But do moms get to be MABYS? (or would that be MABIES? Let me check with The Imaginary Word Committee…just a sec…MABIES it is.)

Ahem. Do moms get to be MABIES?


No. Moms still have to take care of everyone when we’re sick. It’s just kind of the way it is.

I know my guy isn’t being a selfish jerkface. He’s simply doing what all guys do—turning inward, focusing on the singular task at hand—getting better so he can go back to making mo money mo money mo money. Men don’t give a thought to the family as a whole when they are sick – I’ve lived with enough men to know this to be true (boyfriends, dad, roommates, friends). It’s not that my guy isn’t loving and generous, because he is. He’s just sick and being a big um, MABY.


Every woman I know has been begging me to write this article and I’ve always declined. Why? I figure I’m going to piss off a few men out there who will tell me I’m high, they’re just wonderful to everyone when they’re sick; they even make delicious homemade cookies and embroider tea cozies when they have the sniffles, blah blah blah. Ok, fine. This essay is not about you, so hush. Clearly, I don’t know you.


So could you please come over? I’m too tired to make cookies and I’m fresh out of tea cozies.


And while you’re here, could you make me some tea?


That’d be great. Thanks.

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