My grandfather told me something profound one night in between sips of his Coors Light. He looked me square in the eyes—it must have been going on two in the morning—he told me, “Scott, women are bitches.”

I was blown away.

By the alcohol on his breath. And that I was still up at 2:00 a.m. (Note: I’m in middle school at the time.)

He had taken his Match.com girlfriend out to a nice, expensive restaurant for dinner. He wined and dined her and picked up the bill, and then she proceeded to pawn him off onto one of her friends. (She called it “introducing,” but don’t let that fool you.)

After that disaster of an evening, he came by my house to pick me up because I was going to spend the night with him. As soon as we got to his house, he cracked open a six-pack and started drinking.

He sat me down, gave me a Coke, and said, “Scott, women are bitches.”

He preached this single message to me—that women are bitches—until he was out of booze. Then we got into the car and bought more.

He kept me up until almost three in the morning, preaching from the kitchen countertop: “Women are bitches! Scott, don’t ever get tangled up with a woman ‘cause they’re all bitches.” He paused only to drink. “Don’t take ‘em out to dinner. Don’t buy ‘em nice things. Don’t do nothing for ‘em ‘cause they’ll just shit on you and dump you onto their friends.”

“Grandpa, I want to go to bed.”

“You’re not going to bed until you understand.”

“I underst—”

“—No you don’t! Not ‘til I say you do.”

I don’t remember him ever actually ordering me to be gay, but I imagine it was inadvertently implied.

I’ve learned from experience that he was right—women are bitches. But I’m sure there’s a similar, reversed story floating around somewhere about an older woman who got drunk in front of her granddaughter after being stood up by a man and forcing the notion that men are dicks down her throat.

Yes, I just ended that paragraph with “dicks down her throat.”

You’re welcome.