Carnivorous Cow looked up from her whipless mocha in surprise. Mr Timberland had obviously been reading her blog, and had taken some of it a trifle personally. She hoped franatically that Tony-over-the-sea or one of his local colleagues would cobble together some hasty disclaimer, to keep the lawyers at bay. She didn’t want her wages to be spent on a monthly supply of Timberland shoelaces in perpetuity to appease wounded egos.
But she was particularly perplexed at the notion that a trend, such as “Men are the new girls”, could be reduced in someone’s mind to a single example. If it were only one man obsessing about weight, painting his tearoom battleship grey and calling it “cigar smoke”, and cycling, it would be sad, but not remarkable. (OK, so it is only one man painting his tearoom battleship grey, and it is rather sad, but the rest goes beyond a single tragic specimen… see "more", below)
Back in her office, she asked Gramsci the wolf spider why he thought this was so.
“Surely they’re not that self-obsessed that they think the universe begins and ends with them?” Gramsci asked bemusedly. “Which would imply that they’re not aware of the existence of like-minded people? Oh, the poor, isolated, tortured souls!”
Carnivorous Cow did not like the direction this conversation was taking. In drawing attention to a social phenomenon, was she now responsible for connecting all the isolated individuals who manifested it? The thought of facilitating a support-group for anorexic MAMAs (see "more", below) was too terrifying to contemplate. She picked up the phone nervously. “Do you have a couple of Lexotans to trade for some really high quality lucerne?”
MAMAs are Middle-Aged Male Academics.