"A Nipple By Any Other name...."

Why do men have nipples?

*blink*
*blink*

I have been plagued by this question a lot of late.

Recently, I was in the company of some friends at a local Irish pub that I have grown to call my own, staring blankly into my fifth Guinness as they all talked amongst themselves. In my inebric solemnity - and to no one in particular - I blurted out my question. The room grew silent, and I looked up, wondering why everyone had stopped talking.

Kelly Jo was the first to speak: "Well, you obviously haven't been with the *right* woman, Scotty." Then everyone started to laugh and went back to their conversations, dismissing me like yesterdays coffee grounds.

Yet, the question still remains. What the hell are my nipples for, anyway? I am a man, right? Will I ever nurse a child? Nooo... will people look at my shirt as I walk through the frozen foods section of my local grocer and say, "Wow! Look at the highbeams on that one!" I dare say, not. Are my nipples here for the sole purpose of having something to pierce and dangle a chain from... hardly... not into that whole self-mutilation thing.

Darwin might confide that he belives men's nipples are the evolutionary residual of some primordial past when the genders were combined. Darwin was sucking up waaaay too much Galapagos ganja.

I even tried the whole cutting glass thing, and couldn't figure out why the hell that ever became a popular phrase. All it did for me was give me a tile pattern on my knees while I knealt on the bathroom countertop smudging my mirror.

I posed my question to the janitor at my old office building late one night. He was a dissident Tibetan monk sojourning here in America after fleeing the cruelty of the Chinese government. Contemplating my query, he placed his palms together and looked me in the eye, his face filled with the peace of many past lives. "Why do men have nipples? It is because despite the slow grinding of the oxen, the earth remains patient."

*blink*
*blink*

I was going to ask him to comment on the areola, but my better judgement o'ertook me.

So I pose my question to you, my friends, compatriots and allies.... why DO men have nipples. Release me from my quandry, free me from my consternation, help me sleep at night.....

Nippling out in my air conditioning...
~Scotty

p.s. Scotch... need more Scotch...........