Here’s what you need to know.

A guy insists he is your friend.  Of course he is!  Who wouldn’t be?  That’s the reaction of any woman with self-esteem.

I mean, you didn’t invite him to your house, but so what? Men have nothing better to do, so they just hang out for months and confide in you about their girlfriend, or their boyfriend, and watch a lot of sports.

Is it baseball season, or is it basketball season?  It seems to be both simultaneously.

And so you retreat to your room to read Homer, and you have some “men’s” and “de’s” to take care of.

When they get too loud, you open the door and say, with a wildly irritated smile, “Guys, you wouldn’t be yelling if you had enough sex.”

And then they hoot and ask you if you’re having enough sex.  “I am or I wouldn’t be reading the Iliad..”

This cracks them up.  “The Iliad? Or is it the Iliddad?

Okay, one of my friends shows me his copy of Naked Lunch to prove he’s reading. I gave it to him, because I do not like Burroughs, and now he always brings it over so he can mockingly show me his progress.  He’s on page 10, he claims.

“Hey, fickle woman! Why does he get Naked Lunch and I get Pride and Prejudice?”

“I already told you:  I had six copies of Pride and Prejudice.“

Well, the others have no books to show me, which is a shame because you’re sure you gave William Faulkner’s Snopes books to one of them, and he told you about the scene where mentally-challenged boy had sex with a cow. If you had remembered that, you would never have given it to him. THESE GUYS! 

And so you meekly go back to your room to read the Iliad. Yes, you’re going to a schoolmarmish event soon, a lecture on the Iliad.  What could be more fun for a schoolmarm? Except sex, of course…