Years ago I was expounding to my therapist on a pet mock-theory of mine - that Earth was a planet originally populated by men who were eventually invaded and subjugated by two superior alien species - women and cats.
When I saw her eyes narrow, it dawned on me that I was telling a mental health professional, with the power to have me taken away to a hospital, that I really thought women and cats were invaders from somewhere else in the galaxy.
Hastily I assured her that I was only kidding and that I really didn't believe that.
"That may be," she said, "but you realize that now I can't let you leave here alive."
Actually it made me feel good that she thought I was healthy enough to joke with that way.
I really don't believe that women come from some other planet, but there are some indications that they may wind up the only gender on this one. (I almost said they may wind up in control of this one. I know they already are, but pretending not to notice is a pretty good form of camouflage.)
We already know that women outlive men, a phenomenon for which multiple explanations have been offered. (Q: Why do men die first? A: Because they can.)
But what a lot of people don't know is that the ratio of female to male births has been swinging toward the female side for decades now.
Years ago I wrote about a San Francisco Examiner story on a population geneticist who believed the Y-chromosome (the one that differentiates men from women) was doomed and that men, eventually, would still exist, but would have the same XX chromosome arrangement than women do. I guess that meant they would still be men but be capable of asking for directions.
There is a general theory that the XX chromosome is the perfect state of humanity and that men are just women who didn't quite turn out right, a theory that I have found to be held as gospel by virtually every woman in my life for the past 59 years.
Somehow that worried me.
I have always felt that we were useful for reproduction and jar-opening if nothing else.
And if you add to it recent advances in cloning and in techniques for stimulating parthenogenesis (reproduction without sperm) it gets even scarier. I found one article quoting a scientist as saying that, along with delivering some genes to the egg, the sperm's main purpose was to irritate the egg so it would begin to divide and develop. Scientists are investigating waysto deliver the genes without sperm, using DNA instead, but I hope they will still need us to supply the irritation.
Some species already can reproduce without sperm, including some fish, a species of lizard and even turkeys.
So, are we on the way to a world where, as Australian educator, journalist and politician Irina Dunn put it, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?" (And, please don't bother to tell me it was Gloria Steinem who said it. She herself has credited Dunn with the phrase.)
Will men go the way of the dodo bird, pterodactyls, bean bag chairs and constitutional rights?
Are we really, as the British would say, "redundant"?
There might be some hope, according to a story written by Associated Press science writer Malcolm Ritter.
Although some scientists had speculated that the Y-chromosome might disappear eventually because of its inability to eliminate its own genetic defects, recent discoveries indicate that it "has a pretty neat trick up its sleeve."
It's complicated, but basically the chromosome uses a process called "gene conversion" and carries backup copies of its important genes. It can use one copy to fix a flaw in another.
The whole process, even if it plays out as previously thought, with the Y-chromosome disappearing, would take millions of years anyway.
But women already outlive us and outnumber us, and if they felt like it, could outvote us.
My suggestion would be to go ahead and learn to start putting the seat down - before President Clinton (and I ain't talking Willy) proposes the legislation that makes it mandatory.
