How About the Furniture Business?

Alicia Babe is the kind of misfit who would ankle into a bare room and promptly try to rearrange the furniture. No one present yesterday morning recorded whether the coordinated Alicia Babe attempted to stamp both of her dainty feet simultaneously. Nor whether she flicked dusky cigar ashes on anyone perceived to be a non-feminist. Alicia Babe’s complaint — a required preliminary step when pondering a class-action suit — contends that the Fire Dept. is guilty of gender discrimination (presumably against girls rather than men), hostile work environment, harassment and retaliation. Shoot, I haven’t even met Alicia Babe, and I would happily authorize harassment duty against her if this is her attitude. My favorite line from Alicia Babe’s joke list was that she was passed over for a transfer, that she lost out to a man who was less qualified. Alicia, baby, now you know how we gentlemen with superior qualifications feel when an undertalented girl is chosen.

Are You a Man or Not?

Alicia Babe strides into a men’s club, says she wants to become one of the boys, then bellyaches when she is treated like one. Remember the firefighting girl who filed suit a few years ago because male firefighters were reading Playboy and she was offended? Susan Evans may or may not be older than Alicia Babe, who ain’t no pimply-faced teenybopper. Through confidence, talent and undoubted persistence, Ms. Evans advanced through the difficult system she chose to engage. At her retirement after almost four years in Culver City, she is leaving a reconfiguration stamp on the community that she can show her great-grandchildren 30 years from this morning. That is how a mature person conducts himself in a big people’s environment, Alicia Babe.

How to Achieve Peace in the World

Without question, the working world would be far better off if the following rules were instituted:

• Only men 6 feet and taller were eligible for elective office.

• Only men 6 feet and taller were permitted to become CEOs.

• Suppressed girls such as Alicia Babe were permitted in the workplace only so long as they wore three layers of scotch tape over their lips for the duration of their shifts.

When those three policies are enacted, there no doubt will be world peace for the first time since Gloria Steinem was born, which I believe was 1895. And now if Police Chief Don Pedersen kindly will provide an escort, I shall tentatively start driving home. If my wife calls, tell her I am taking the scenic route. If that is all right with her.