I always got to class early. I was usually sitting in the Student Union bldg. drinking coffee and studying as other members of my class drifted in one at a time. Forty three years old and excited about being back in school.

Anatomy and Physiology was my favorite subject. I had an A average so far and couldn't wait till we started the chapter on Human Reproduction. I figured I could ace THAT one without even studying. Lord knows, I'd been studying it long enough outside school.

Now, I was sitting there.......drinking coffee and eating a donut..........waiting for class to start............book open in front of me and looking at page after page of graphs reguarding female cycles.

Mentrural cycles, basal temperature charts, ovarian cycles, estrogen cycles, relative concentrations of anterior pitutary hormones vs ovarian hormones cycles, the hypothalmic GnRF cycle. Those were just the first two pages of the chapter. There were two more pages of this stuff before I saw a word I recognized. Ace THIS chapter? I'd be lucky if I got one question out of a hundred right.

FSH....that one gets released from some follicle after GnRF does it's thing. Estrone and estroil? I was getting dizzy now. I turned the page.

The LH stimulates the corpus luteum..........Uh.....how 'bout that? That causes the corpus luteum to release progesterone and estrogens (there's more than one?). Women's bodies did all this? An hour went by while I tried to absorb the significance of all I was reading. This was absolutely amazing. Women have more glands and hormones than a duck has feathers.......and every one of them was on a different clock.

Two female classmates walked up and sat across from me. "How ya doing Loyal? Getting an early start on today's chapter?" I sat there studying them. I looked back down at the zig zagging graphs and the charts where one line would climb while another would fall. I looked back at my classmates again.

Suddenly, it dawned on me! Women were an entirely different species. I'd been walking around for the past forty years thinking the only differences were in the plumbing we had. I took a good look at Karen. Twenty four years old. Blonde, five six or so......maybe one forty. She looked normal enough sitting there in jeans and a sweat shirt. But, now I knew differently. I looked at her forehead. I imagined her glands there dripping hormones into her blood stream. I looked at her throat. Behind that throat was the hypothalmus. It was gushing all kinds of yucky stuff.

Karen leaned across the table to say something. I almost fell out of my chair trying to slide back from her. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. It wouldn't do to alarm her. It might set off all kinds of other glands I hadn't even read about yet. Both women were giving me funny looks now. I tried a weak smile. "Uh..........you ladies started the next chapter yet?" I managed to act almost normal as we made our way to class.

After class, I hurried over to the school library. I felt like one of the chosen few in a movie about aliens. Now, I KNEW that half the world's population was controlled by glands the other half didn't even know existed. I wondered if this might be a part of the Hippocratic oath doctors took. "I hereby swear to never tell another non-doctor type male what goes in the mind and body of a human female."

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the library reading that chapter. I walked out a different man. Women have some 4,386,932 glands and each and every one of them is busy stimulating one another every few minutes. Men, on the other hand, only have one gland in the center of their brain that produces enough testosterone to enable them to lift two ton trucks in order to get to a naked female. If no naked women are nearby, the male will try to club other males, hit home runs, slam dunk a basketball, start a war or build a treehouse to lessen the effects of testosterone.

It's as simple as that! GENDER differences? I think NOT! What we are talking about here are differences in species. I've given this matter a lot of thought over the past decade. I believe I've finally stumbled across the answer. I found it in the Book Of Genesis.

Scholars have long speculated that the early chapters of the bible might have been allegorical. I submit that the following happened.

"God created man"......he wanted a few guys around that he could talk with. He could (and already had) envision Monday night football, the World Series, the NBA, etc. . For a millenium or two, God just relaxed and enjoyed the antics of these men he had created. He watched as they clubbed one another, ran around bases, dribbled basketballs and generally had fun. Somewhere along the way, he got bored and thought about the limitless ways he could/would/had/might/should/might already have/did....... improve on the antics of man.

So.............."God created woman" There are many things one might say about God. Denying that he has a sense of humor isn't one of those things. One can only wonder how many additional millenia he chuckled to himself as he slowly put together those zillions of glands and hormones that make up a woman.

Quite honestly, I would like to speculate further on this subject. I can't though. Sitting here alone at one in the morning, my hair is already starting to stand on end. Will this be yet another night when I wake during the night with images of female glands stimulating one another to do Lord knows what to poor clueless males like myself?

I never shudda ate that pizza after I got off work. It's the onions that do it. No question about it.