ROBERT CLEMENTS

“…Now human embryos without a father…”

The group of men sitting round a table at a club sipping their drinks and chewing peanuts, given free by the management, had gloomy expressions on their faces, as they looked at the newspaper item.

“Human embryos without fathers, what’s to become of us?” asked a bespectacled fellow emptying his glass with one gulp.

“You better not do that,” said another who had just finished a game of squash and was now sipping his beer.

“I better not do what?” asked the man wearing spectacles.

“Drink the way you are doing, you may get thrown out of the house!”

“My wife wouldn’t…..” started the man with the glasses than tapered off lamely, “I guess, now she couldn’t care less!”

“Yeah!” said a third man, “not only would they not care less, but they may start shoving us around the house!”

“Who’s this rotten scientist who’s doing this to us?” asked a fourth fellow, who was considered a bit of a ladies man, “the other day I was at a party and the chicks were all together in one corner and didn’t even notice me when I walked in.

“They don’t need you anymore stud!” laughed the man with the beer.

“I don’t think it’s a laughing matter,” said the bespectacled fellow, “I don’t know what I would do without my woman.”

“Hey, you got us for company,” said the ladies man.

“You know how to make a cup of tea?”

“Sure I do.”

“And bring it to me with love in your eyes?”

“You asking too much man.”

“Yeah? But that’s how me wife does it!”

“He’s right!” exclaimed the beer- drinking fellow.

“So what we gonna do?” asked the third man as he scooped all the peanuts into his hand and threw them one by one into an empty beer glass.

“You gotta stop doing what you’re doing first,” said the bespectacled man.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?” asked the man with the peanuts.

“They don’t like all that mess you’re creating.”

“They don’t?” asked the ladies man.

“Or your strut, swagger and showing off!” continued the man with the glasses.

“Hey whose side you on?” asked everybody.

“Yours, I mean ours,” said the man with the spectacles, “but if we fellows don’t behave, the way its goin’ we fellers will only have each other fer company.”

“No more messin around?”

“No.”

“No more late nights and guzzling the bubbly?”

“No.”

“No more chasing skirts?”

“Nah!”

“Okay!” said all the men as they got up from their table.

“Where you all going?” asked the bartender.

“To kill that rotten scientist before he kills us..!” they shouted as they tore out of the club.

Robert Clements is a journalist and widely published newspaper columnist. His column Bob’s Banter is published in over 30 newspapers and magazines