Okay, I wanted to do something a little "off the wall". You see I gave
blood recently, which is always depressing, because before the Red Cross
will take your blood you must testify that you've never gone anywhere or
done anything. Veal calves are constantly limping in the door and cutting to
the front of the line. "In the last twelve years," asks the questionnaire,
"have you engaged in any risky behavior, such as traveling outside Vermont,
or sharing knitting needles? Have you ever received a hickey from a liberal? If
you are not trapped inside a prudish, provincial, staid suburban lifestyle so
dull that it mocks the very idea of both life and style, you may hand in this
form now, grab your free Lorna Doones on the way out, and please... take us
with you. You don't know what it's like in here. Oh, to burn with love! To sail
to foreign shores! To taste the forbidden spices of--Shhh! Someone is coming."

At one point in my early twenties I was an interesting person--I even had a
shot at becoming too interesting for the Red Cross, I think--but then I got
married. This is what happens: every decision a single guy makes is partly
based on his own desires, and partly calculated to make him more attractive
to women. Trust me, if there were no women, no one would join the marines. No
one would go to business school, or to the moon. Why would we risk our lives
and go to all that trouble? No one would play guitar, or paint, or act. Adam
Sandler is your fault, believe it or not.

Once we get married and the pressure is off, we tend to go a bit soft. For
example this week I really needed to swim at the town pool to get ready
for the triathlon, but I was being a middle-aged wimp. The weather was cold
and rainy, and I was doing everything I could to avoid swimming. I may even
have done a load of laundry on Monday. On Wednesday afternoon it was still
fifty degrees and misty but I was running out of time. I thought back to
how I would have approached this challenge when I was single, and it took
some effort but I remembered. I stood up straight, held my head high, buried
my fear and loathing of cold water, and marched confidently toward the swim
center entrance, thinking only of how impressed the female life guards would
be by my unflinching dedication to training. The mojo was back, baby.

A male life guard stopped me on the way in.

"We just closed," he said. "No one was swimming."

"Oh thank God!" I said, and hugged him, weeping openly on his shoulder.

One brave thing I did do recently was go to Maine. They have signs
everywhere up there warning about moose. "Beware of moose." "Hundreds of
people killed." "Never give a moose a muffin." "Moose, you fool! Moose!" That
sort of thing. Apparently you can be car camping, minding your own business,
eating a warm blueberry muffin, and a wild moose will suddenly charge out
of the woods, slide across your hood "Starsky and Hutch" style, and smash
through your windshield. I've seen photos of this on the Internet and they
look pretty real.

I managed to avoid any encounters during this trip but I did come back with
some interesting moose facts. Did you know that every moose is named Bullwinkle
at birth, but that some change their name to Bulltinkle or Bullsprinkle upon
reaching full moosehood? Also, for those of you who can't imagine eating
moose meat, I've heard many people say that it tastes remarkably like rhino.

Guys are not inherently any braver or tougher than women are. Battle of the
Network Stars proved that decades ago. But we have to do something
to appear dynamic and exciting, and shoe shopping doesn't work for us. So we
drag race and sky dive and swim in uncomfortably cold water without making
a face. If we seem a little boring lately, you can perk us up by promising
to watch if we do something insane. Just don't let us build a big rocket in
the back yard because that always turns into a disaster.

John Lengyel lives in Cohasset. Before his next blood donation in August
he hopes to amp up his Bad Boy image by at least meeting someone who knows
an African.