The War On Men AND Women
By Eric Silver
My esteemed colleague at FoxNews.com, Suzanne Venker, recently wrote an article detailing her conclusions about the state of marriageable men, based on extensive interviews with thousands of men and women, not to mention three books on the American family and pop culture. While I certainly agree — as would my parents — that we should all be concerned about the declining interest in marriage, I feel that Ms. (probably Mrs., though) Venker has mistakenly blamed the new identity of women in society when there is a much more reasonable explanation.
Ms. Venker is not the only one who has done her research. I have tweeted and produced videos seen by thousands, and I have read all five of the books in the Game of Thrones series, so I think I can speak with some authority on this topic. The answer is simple: the city halls of all the major cities in the continental United States are being terrorized by gangs of venomous snakes. From the findings of the Pew Research Center, I’d estimate probably around five snakes per municipal building.
It all makes sense when you really stop to think about it. From my informal interviews with people, 100% of them are deathly afraid of venomous snakes. Unlike women, venomous snakes are today what they always have been: nasty things that are icky and can bite and kill you. So put yourself into a bachelor or bachelorette’s shoes for a second; would you be willing to court death just to get a marriage certificate? No. Fuck that. That’s what all humans think, regardless of gender. Of course marriage seems less popular among young people today than it did twenty years ago. Twenty years ago these snakes weren’t even alive (note: the average life span of a snake is 10-12 years, which coincides nicely with our findings over the last five years, assuming 2010-2012 as prime snake years).
Arguably the threat was always there, but it needed the right conditions to thrive. Snakes are attracted to the scent of blood, which makes those blood tests the state requires tantamount to chumming the ocean before going for a dip. Add to it the reptilian abhorrence of monogamy in any form, and you have a bloodlust fueled by rage and feelings of insecurity. One might wonder why measurements weren’t even considered in the construction of these buildings themselves. For God’s sake, they could have at least moved away from central air and heating.
Some of my readers may find my conclusions a bit dubious. “Eric,” they might ask, “what about Occam’s Razor? Wouldn’t the explanation probably be something a lot simpler? Like one big snake?” Obviously this thought crossed my mind, too, but I just don’t think one snake has the ability to deter/threaten so many people in a given city, even if it were positioned right on the counter of the City Clerk’s window. Presumably one brave couple could take on the duties of both distracting and then subduing a single snake in order to get married. No, it has to be some sort of snake gang, where each member can watch the tails of the others. Now, I don’t know if they’re coordinating with the other snake gangs in other city halls, or if this is just some sort of natural development in our ecosystem; that’s for professionals to determine.
And yet the media still has yet to even entertain this very real danger as even a possibility. Sure, Ms. Venker makes the same claim, but at least she was able to get FoxNews.com, stepbrother of the media, to run her piece, while I’m still looking for a Tumblr that will have me. “The war on men” may be a catchier title than “The war on men and women, or, ‘war’”, but that makes it no more truthful. The facts are plain and bare for all to see. There are marriageable men and women out there, but most are not willing to weigh their happiness against increased odds of a venomous snake attack. If you find that your significant other is not willing to take that next step in your relationship, ask yourself what they’re most likely afraid of. Is it commitment to one individual for an undetermined amount of time with legal bindings, or is it something with fangs that smells the air by flicking its tongue? Or somethings???? Fortunately, the solution is simple. If our City Clerks would simply enact a mongoose initiative, allocating one or more to their territory until the snake threat is extinguished, we’ll find more of our young people open to marriage, and completely unfazed by the presence of mongeese in a government office building. For as the proverb states, a well-fed mongoose is the sign of a prosperous future together.