Z: Man Weekend Update!

She: That should be a short newscast. This just in: Another billion brain cells sacrificed in search of lost boyhood.

Z: Ah, but this year I noticed something that even you might be interested in.

She: That it’s bad to walk on fire? That a potato shot out of a PVC tube at high velocity at a watermelon will make said watermelon explode? Enlighten me.

Z: You make it sound like I haven’t shared important Man Weekend insights with you before.

She: “Hey, honey. Did you know that it hurts when you crash a bike into a tree?”

Z: I’m not wrong about that. It hurts a lot more than just walking into a tree.

She: Share already.

Z: It turns out that all these manly men, these rugged outdoorsy dudes, are a bunch of pansies.

She: You still have both your legs, so I’m guessing you didn’t share this theory with them. What brings you to this theory of pansiness?

Z: There were no duels.

She: I know you drove kind of far for the Man Weekend, but I didn’t know it involved time travel.

Z: W was there, and he married a college girlfriend of mine. C and R are often there, and they married the same woman. And this year, we had A and M, who not only married the same woman, but left at the same time so that they could go see their kid’s/step-kid’s baseball game.

She: Seriously? You tell me all about rafting, and biking, and meat, and farting, and drinking, and this is the first time you let me know about something actually interesting? In the middle of our column?

Z: At least I shared.

She: So you’ve got a house full of men who have married the same women, or at least slept with the same woman, and there are no weird tensions?

Z: It sounds like the perfect setup for a reality TV show when you put it that way, but no — no weird tensions.

She: Huh. I had no idea that you were going to the Man Weekend with such highly evolved males. Were there catty comments about who slept with whom?

Z: Nope.

She: Snide remarks about who was the most well-endowed?

Z: Nope.

She: Sexual insecurity inadequately obscured by jokes about money and prestige?

Z: Not all all.

She: All that back-story with no payoff. What’s the point of setting up so much drama if nothing happens? What a bunch of wimps.

Z: Fear not, there was still plenty of manliness.

She: Don’t you mean boy-liness.

Z: Manly, extremely manly.

She: Sure. No fighting over the women folk and no fire walking.

Z: Don’t despair. This year, Mark B. thought it would be a really good idea to build a ramp in front of the bonfire, tear down the hill in the dark, and then jump the fire on his mountain bike.

She: Any third-degree burns?

Z: Nah. He fell over before he got to the ramp. Manly!

She: Yes, dear.

Share your thoughts with She and Z at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com.