The Wok of Shame?

August 3, 2006

Some guys think it’s embarrassing to walk into a store and buy ‘feminine products’ for their wife or girlfriend.

Nonsense.

Just the act of purchasing tampons or maxipads tells the world that you have a wife or girlfriend. Sure, she obviously wears the pants in the relationship, since it’s you trekking out to track down her toiletries. But you’ve got someone, and that’s what counts. You might even be getting lucky with her soon.

But not that soon. That’s the Megapack of Tampax ‘Wingmasters’ on the counter there, bud. You’ll be cooling those jets for a few days more.

Other guys are shy about stopping by a drugstore to buy condoms.

Hogwash.

Look, I could understand it, if you’re buying ‘LifeStyles Minis’ or ‘Junior Trojans’. But even at that, who’s going to see you buying them? The store manager? The checkout lady with the lazy eye? The drunk old guy by the magazine rack pretending he’s not sneaking a look at the Juggs on the top shelf? So what?

Screw those people. If you’re buying rubbers, you’re having a way better night than any of those losers. Big ones, small ones, papaya-flavored purple ones — it doesn’t matter in the least. Let the cashier jockey price check you, over the loudspeakers if he wants. That’s the sweet tinny sound of jealousy, my friend.

I know of other guys that say buying porno mags in a store is the most embarrassing.

Well… maybe.

Personally, I have no idea. I’ve never bought a pornographic publication from a drugstore or newsstand. Honestly, in this day and age, why the hell would you?

“Why buy the proverbial cow, when you can see three hookers and an albino midget perform unspeakable acts on a real cow any hour of the day or night?”

The internet is right there, and it’s just brimming with porn of every shape, size, and species. Why buy the proverbial cow, when you can see three hookers and an albino midget perform unspeakable acts on a real cow any hour of the day or night? It just doesn’t make sense. It may keep me from eating beef for the next few months, certainly, but it doesn’t make any sense.

Then there are those guys who blush and giggle when they buy their personal grooming products.

Ninnies.

Hey, we all have our problems. Some of those problems relate to various grooming issues, and that’s unfortunate. But if you’re standing there in the store, with your dandruff shampoo in one hand, a nose hair trimmer in the other, and a cart full of Beano and Dr. Scholls, at least that lets people know you’re doing something about it.

Honestly, wouldn’t it be more embarrassing to be walking around shedding flakes and floating air biscuits, with nostrils like porcupines and stinky cheese feet? If I see someone buying that stuff, I give them a nod and feel good that they’re trying to better themselves.

I give them a wide berth in the checkout line, of course — just in case they only decided today to start bettering themselves. Still. They’re fighting the good fight. What’s not to like?

Personally, I think the most embarrassing item a guy can buy at the store is a frying pan.

Why a frying pan?

Because the frying pan purchase signals to the world that not only does the guy not have someone to help with the cooking and the frying of delicious meats and meat-like substances — he also has no prospects of any such help in the near future. Otherwise, he’d wait it out, to see how the shared fryware situation shakes out.

If said gentleman is over the age of twenty-two or so, it’s even worse. At ‘college graduate’ age, you could make the case that the fellow has a genuine interest in the culinary arts, and honestly enjoys using his own frying pan. Alone. Probably for SPAM, in the kitchenette of his dingy bachelor pad, over by the dive bars and liquor stores on the sketchy side of town.

(Hey, I said you could make a ‘case’. I never said it would be a good case.)

Once a guy reaches twenty-five or so without a frying pan, though, there’s only one reasonable explanation as to why — the man doesn’t want a damned frying pan. He’d much prefer to be out buying Kotex pads and bikini tweezers for a lady friend willing to fry things for him, and he’s no longer able to afford the local fast food joints that will, for a fee, deliver pre-cooked and re-warmed fried delectables to him. The actual buying of a frying pan for personal use is, for these men, rock solid bottom. It’s ‘twelve-step program’ territory, is what it is.

I should know. When I got married, I owned no less than three frying pans. At least one was a gift, and none were used for anything other than prepping bologna slices for sandwiches. But when you walk into your lonely man-kitchen and see a choice of frying pans on the wall or in the cupboard — or, more likely, festering in the filthy sink — you know that your life has somewhere gone terribly, terribly wrong. Such is the curse of the single male frying pan. Fear it!