Julia Roberts is tempting fate

This conversation between Gail Collins and David Brooks hits on so many vital DadWagon issues—stay-at-home dads, marrying women who make more money than you, expressing emotions—but clearly one topic, brought up by Mr. Brooks, is the most important. Of course, I’m talking about armpits:

Scientists took a bunch of research subjects and taped pads to their underarms and asked them to watch a funny or scary movie. Then they got another group of subjects to sniff the pads and predict whether the pads were from the scary movie group or the funny movie group. Both men and women could give the right answer most of the time, but women were much, much more accurate. The empathy thing.

Now, I’m not really sure what armpit-smelling has to do with child-rearing, but as David Brooks would no doubt say, “Evolutionary psychology, dude!”

Which reminds me that back when Sasha was around six months old, I learned something big about evolutionary biology and modern culture. It must have been a lazy Sunday morning, and the three of us were half-dozing in bed, when I felt a sudden, acute pain in my left armpit—a pain that did not go away. It was little Sasha, grasping and yanking a fat handful of my ‘pit hair, a drooling smile creeping across her chubby face. This, my dear friends, is why women shave their armpits. (In fact, Jean is getting hers permanently lased.)

And this is also why I doubt Mr. Brooks’s conclusion that women are more empathetic than men. Sure, they may know exactly what you’re feeling, but that won’t stop them from using it against you, with hearts as cold as ice and smiles as warm and giggly as a newborn baby’s.