Hello rockstars! I like to say life is better when you’re laughing and right about now in this busy season, I think we could all use a chuckle or two. Am I right? I thought so. But, first, a warning. I’m about to poke a little gentle fun at our Rockstar grandfathers.

Back in the day I could opine on things like the differences I’ve observed between the way men and women communicate without worrying about someone getting offended. I miss those days. I did a fair amount of that good-natured ribbing in my first humor book, Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color, but I’m well aware that ship has sailed, so I try to tread more lightly these days. Thanks to the Internet, confrontational people are now encouraged to reach out and argue with anyone about everything, including any mention of gender differences. They call it gender neutrality, which sounds like something slipped out of gear to me, but it means we aren’t supposed to notice or discuss male vs. female characteristics. Whatever. The men and women I know still have different ways of communicating. Not bad, just different, and I find it funny! For illustration, imagine if Siri and Alexa were Harold and Larry…

If you asked Harold and Larry a question out of the blue, it’s likely that their first response would be, “What?” Men need context clues before conversing. For further study, please see my earlier work entitled “Why our men need advance warning that they’re about to be spoken to in order for them to be prepared to hear.” Without this solid understanding of the rules for engaging your man’s attention, ladies, you’re destined to repeat the first thirty seconds of every conversation you open with your beloved. You’re welcome.

If Siri and Alexa were Harold and Larry, we couldn’t entertain ourselves asking them silly old questions just to see what they’d say. We would need to be much more selective with our questions, lest Harold and Larry use up their daily word quota and shut down before the day got started good.

Harold and Larry would also spend a lot of time asking us for help in locating common household items. Like ketchup. I have a theory about this, too. Our men are smart. I think they know where to find this stuff. They just like to see how many times they can ask about an item before it gets thrown at them. I figure it’s like a sport to ‘em. They probably have brackets and everything. You know, now that I think about it, there’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. I say bring Harold and Larry in, but keep Siri and Alexa— and let the games begin.