No men.

I heard about a young lady, a daughter of a friend of a friend, who graduated high school this year with a plan to practice living away at college. She and her pals got jobs in a beachfront town and rented a house; they would work and pay their own way and be responsible like grown-ups should be. 

But they made one fatal and entirely, completely, 100% avoidable mistake. They allowed some guys to rent with them. 

I'm kidding about the picture--this is from a show about hoarding--but not about the boys. One of the things that made this young lady quit her job and come home in July was that the boys were absolute pigs and refused to do a thing around the house. They just left their crap everywhere and never scrubbed a dish. If I know my gender, they probably left a lot of beer cans everywhere as well. And this was all foreseeable for anyone who has ever been 18 years old. 

I don't mean to blame the victim. Of course these slobs should have pulled their weight in the beach house. But it is to be expected that boys won't, certainly not in their first away-from-home digs. I have to guess that these boys and girls were not romantically entangled, or the girls could have used their wiles to get the boys to behave like they should. Not that the women should have to, of course; I'm just saying it would have worked. 

Unsupervised men are pigs. Not all, no. Just by and large. Especially when they first get out from under Mom's thumb. Hell, if these boys were actually paying their share of rent on time I'd be surprised. 

I remember visiting a friend at college in my own university days; he lived in a house with other undergrads, each worse than the next, subsisting on cheap beer and frozen potpies. While I was there two housemates got in a play-fight in the kitchen and body-slammed the table, which did it no good at all. These things don't generally happen in women's houses. 

Another friend I visited lived in a similar arrangement; a few doors down his girlfriend lived in a house with some women. It was like staying with Oscar and visiting Felix.

My point is, people will say that in these enlightened times we need not worry about mixing young men and women in co-ed housing, but I say: Be wise, women. For your own sanity, if nothing else, don't share a roof with these uncivilized heathens until they get some civilizing. The summer you save may be your own.

A few minutes with Benjamin Franklin.

Benjamin Franklin: I've quite enjoyed this visit with the modern era. Such wonderful inventions based on my old friend, electricity.

Fred Key: Yes sir, Mr. Franklin, you lit the way on that one!

BF: And I am most impressed that the nation has managed to stay together all this time.

FK: So far. Tell me, Mr. Franklin, if you had been younger, would you have wanted to challenge Washington for the presidency of the country?

BF: Oh, no, I would happily let such a thing to Washington. I found him an excellent man. As I told him, "Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years."

FK: Uh...

BF: I was in Europe at the time...

FK: Huh?

BF: A thousand leagues away in France, where his reputation was much better than it was in Congress.

FK: You were right, sir; we still love Washington, which is why he's on the one-dollar bill and the 25-cent piece.

BF: Is that one-dollar bill not the smallest denomination of paper money?

FK: Yes, he's on it so there'd be more pictures of President Washington in circulation, I've heard.

BF: Then why is he not on the penny rather than the 25-penny coin?

FK: Because... it makes no sense.

BF: And that is why I had little stomach for politics later in life. And you say I'm on the $100 bill?

FK: Yes, sir.

BF: The one that's least in circulation.

FK: Uh, yeah, but it is the highest denomination bill.

BF: That is something. Why, you could buy ten cows with a hundred dollars!

FK: Not quite so many cows now.

BF: Silence, sir; I'm considering it an honor.

FK: Please do. Well, it's been -- 

BF: Say, what is that thing? That looks like one of those monetary notes you were telling me about. The one with my portrait.

FK: Oh... This old thing?

BF: The hundred dollar one? That you couldn't show me?

FK: You can't expect me to have a bill that large, sir. I work in publishing.

BF: I see some things haven't changed. But what is this thing that looks like money?

FK: It's a... a beach towel. Made to look like money.

BF: As a counterfeit bill?

FK: No, just... People like money.

BF: And this beach towel is used to dry one's beach?

FK: No, no, you use it at the beach. Like a picnic blanket. You spread it on the sand and lay on it. Get some sunshine. Tan the skin.

BF: You do this?

FK: Not me; I burn like a fritter. But many young ladies do that.

BF: So young ladies are laying on my portrait. Not the worst fate posterity can offer. And which young lady uses this towel?

FK: Uhhh... My, look at the time! Well --

BF: Mr. Key?

FK: It's for the dogs.

BF: I beg your pardon, sir.

FK: I needed some cheap towels for my dogs, so I found this in the dollar store. When I take the dogs out and it's raining and they come in all wet...

BF: You use my portrait to dry off your dogs.

FK: Ummmmmm....no.... mmmm.... yeah, actually.

BF: My face is being used to dry a dog's rear end.

FK: Well, sometimes his face, too.

BF: Thank you for your hospitality, sir; I think I shall go back to being dead now.

FK: I understand.

Yak.