04/09/2002

To their credit, Dunkin Donuts has come out with a radio ad celebrating high taste in guys.

For example, that a car chase is a sign of artistic achievement in a movie.

And that no guy's house is complete without a painting of dogs playing poker.

It got me thinking about other signs that you're a guy's guy.

Actually, I began thinking about it Sunday night around 9:58 as I told my 10-year-old it was past his bedtime. I told him this as I was surfing channels -- a sign right there. Guy's guys take control of the remote.

I came across a show on The Learning Channel kicking off "Testosterone Week." The program was about the 10 most macho martial arts. As soon as I saw the preview clips, featuring guys smashing their foreheads through boards, I told my son he could stay up another hour. It's important he be given educational opportunities.

My wife, who was in the room at the time, observed from behind her garden ketchup the finest of condiments. No decent chef would serve lamb chops without it.

Similarly, at restaurants, a guy's guy is never comfortable dipping his bread in that amber oil they now force on you. May we have some butter instead? And as Robin Williams demonstrated in The Bird Cage, you never daintily dab butter on bread, a real man smears it.

Nor, as I have explained to my 8-year-old, do guy's guys eat sandwiches without crusts. It's hard to picture Arnold Schwarzenegger ordering a turkey on white that way.

Guy's guys also don't use the word "delicious," especially when the guy is a writer discussing something other than food. Show me a magazine article with the phrase, "it was a delicious experience," and I'll show you an article not written by a guy's guy.

By the way, I actually do own one of those paintings of dogs playing poker. One of my sons spotted it somewhere, and frankly, I thought it a fine addition to our art collection.

We displayed it on his dresser, alongside other esthetic items such as photos of bleeding hockey players. But soon, my wife did what wives often do to decorative objects that guys bring in to the house.

She moved it to the basement.

A while ago, I bought a La-Z-Boy and set it up in the den. It did not last long. That, too, is now in the basement.

This is another sign of being a guy's guy: We are unable to purchase any household items without them soon being ordered into the basement.

Guys are especially bad at lamps. My wife likes classy ones with "atmosphere," which is another word for having 25-wattsmaximum. Guy's guys prefer shiny brass lamps from Home Depot with three-way bulbs, preferably 250-watts max, with 150-watts the low-light atmosphere setting.

Several such lamps are now in our basement.

There is another guy's design twist in the basement. Knowing she had to channel my interior decor needs somewhere, my wife gave me full control of a big basement room, even letting me pick the wallpaper. I gave it a lot of thought, even looking in magazines, and finally chose the perfect guys' guy wallpaper. Gym mats.

I bolted them to the walls, decorated the floor space with two plastic goals and declared it the hockey room, where checking is allowed. Frankly, I think gym mats would look good in our dining room, but I am not allowed to make any above-ground decor decisions.

In truth, I have managed to sneak a few thing into the upper floors, like remote control headphones for the bedroom TV, which I use even when I don't need them. It's hard to explain, except to say that guy's guys don't need a reason to use a gadget.

If I had space here, I'd add a lot more to the list -- for example, that guy's guys need to control shared armrests at theaters and on airplanes; that we prefer our wives go to chick flicks with their girlfriends instead of us, and that if we're going to have a pet, it always -- always -- has to be a dog instead of a cat. And it can't be a poodle.

Oh, and there's one more.

A guy's guy is loose about children's bedtimes.

Especially during Testosterone Week.

Mark Patinkin can be reached at mpatinkin@projo.com.