What a Man Should Know

Here at the Singletails Compound, housed by the 1740s farmhouse and barn that I.M. Pei helped us to renovate, the Department of Antiquated Gender-Essentialist Notions of Masculinity has been busy lately. We're all a'buzz about their latest submission, "100 Things That Every Man Should Know." (Take Caution! The Department of Antiquated Gender-Essentialist Notions of Masculinity had their Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Chili Cook-Off today, so we're giving them wide berth.)

Herewith, for your edification and delight, is the comprehensive 100 Things That Every Man Should Know

1. How to ride a horse
   
2. How to hang a door
   
3. How to plant a tree
   
4. How to tie a half-windsor
   
5. How to open a bottle of wine and get no cork in the wine
   
6. How to shoot a gun
   
7. How to make a bed
   
8. How to make conversation with as stranger
   
9. How to body surf
   
10. How to roast a chicken
    
11. How to drive stick
    
12. How to defrag a hard drive
    
13. At least one poem by heart
    
14. How to make gravy
    
15. The correct form for a bench press
    
16. CPR
    
17. How to keep score in bowling
    
18. How to keep an eight year old child entertained
    
19. How to grow tomatoes
    
20. How to admit a mistake
    
21. How to rebuff a panhandler
    
22. How to steer a canoe
    
23. The name of the waitress at a good local diner
    
24. How to grill a steak
    
25. How to do a self exam for testicular cancer
    
26. How to pick up a desirable sex partner in a bar
    
27. How to give a good massage
    
28. How to build a campfire
    
29. How to play stud poker
    
30. How to point out an error to a colleague in a way that will not cause him or her to hate you
    
31. How to find your way around at least one major world city
    
32. Who didn’t win the 1918 World Series and why
    
33. How to find the surface area of a right triangle if given the lengths of any two of the sides
    
34. What to say when someone says, “Well, I wasn’t expecting the Spanish Inquisition.”
    
35. How to throw a punch
    
36. How to spit shine boots
    
37. What Frank and Joe Hardy’s father did for a living
    
38. How to shuck an oyster
    
39. When Beaujolais hits the shelves
    
40. The words to Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road
    
41. When to use ‘which’ and when to use ‘that’
    
42. A movie critic and music critic whose tastes align with his
    
43. A nearby cigar store
    
44. How to tie a half-grannie
    
45. How to deliver bad news
    
46. How to bake bread
    
47. His senators and representatives in Congress
    
48. What a finger missing down to the knuckle might indicate
    
49. The birthdays of his significant other, parents, offspring, siblings, and closest friends
    
50. How to give an order in a polite but commanding tone of voice that will cause the person being addressed to hop to.
    
51. How to make a toast
    
52. How to hit a softball
    
53. How to change a tire
    
54. How to shave his face
    
55. How to unclog a toilet
    
56. Jackie Robinson’s place in history
    
57. What relationship the number 343 bears to September 11, 2001
    
58. The Prayer of St. Francis
    
59. A chili recipe
    
60. How to fly cast
    
61. The nearest place where they make their own ice cream
    
62. How to make chicken soup
    
63. How to prevent the transmission of HIV
    
64. How to refinish furniture
    
65. Basic histology
    
66. How to housebreak a puppy
    
67. How to use a chainsaw
    
68. The Latin names of trees
    
69. How to ski on water, snow, or both
    
70. How to find a satellite in the night sky
    
71. How to drive in the snow
    
72. How to serve a volleyball
    
73. How to write a business letter
    
74. How to swim
    
75. The rudiments of a language other than the one he grew up speaking
    
76. Just what Marcus Aurelius was meditating on
    
77. How to make a mint julep
    
78. Who his friends are
    
79. The gist of the importance of principal holidays of the major world religions
    
80. How to tell if there’s an undertow
    
81. How to spot someone with a Borderline Personality Disorder
    
82. When to concede defeat
    
83. The words to the National Anthem
    
84. How to spend a weekend alone with the phone unplugged and why
    
85. How to iron a shirt
    
86. How to find a restaurant in an unfamiliar town
    
87. How to do something in public that you’ve never done before
    
88. How to spend time with someone with a terminal illness
    
89. How to make hot cocoa
    
90. How to mix cement
    
91. How to talk about race or religion with someone of a race or religion other than his own
    
92. How to follow a blazed trail
    
93. How to shoot a competitive game of pool
    
94. What poison ivy looks like
    
95. That, as Isaiah Berlin put it, “the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows One Great Thing.”
    
96. How to fly a kite
    
97. When to call it a night
    
98. How to season a cast iron skillet
    
99. How to take a sauna
    
100. That he doesn’t know much
     

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