When I was a kid, I was an uncurable tomboy.  I caught frogs, played baseball with boys, wore Toughskins handed down by my brother and even looked like a boy, for better or worse.  When my parents (or anyone, really ) asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would declare, without hestiation, “a boy!”  

At that point I was unaware of the transgendered and the future, surgical possiblities of my statement.

 “That’s stupid – you can’t be a boy,” sniffed my next door neighbor, Judy.  “Oh yes I can,” I corrected her (Judy was bossy and troublesome) “my parents said I can be anything I want!”

These days, nearing the big 4-0, I don’t really want to be a boy anymore, but there are distinct advantages, I’ve learned, to being a man.  With that in mind, here’s a list of things I can’t wait to do when someday, in another life, I am a man.

Please add in your own fantasties of life as a man.  I’m sure I’m leaving some out...

When I’m a man I will be able to walk by a vase of dead flowers and not feel any compulsion to throw them out, or wash the green slime covered vase.

When I am a man I will rely on a woman to tell me something once, write it down for me and remind me twice as the time for crucial remembering draws near.

When I am a man I will negotiate job interviews and salaries and benefits from the perspective that I am worth much more than anyone is willing to pay me.

When I am a man I will take advantage of the unspoken rule that calling to say you’ll be late is just as good as being on time.

When I am a man I will get away with doing exactly one thing at a time, and sometimes not finishing that, but doing it really well with great focus.

When I am a man I will gladly assume half of the childcare duties by participating in bathtime and reading two stories each night.

When I am a man I will proudly do yardwork – even if it makes more sense to pay some high school kid $6 an hour to do it in half the time I could, without getting hurt.

tbrady

Tracy McArdle is the author of Confessions of a Nervous Shiksa and Real Women Eat Beef. She spent twelve years in New York and Los Angeles as a publicity executive at such co...