Internet Culture

Army specialist not allowed to attend baby shower comes up with much manlier excuse

This oughta boost your testosterone.

Miles Klee

Updated on May 26 2021 1:41 pm CDT

Photo via The U.S. Army/Flickr

The U.S. military has changed a lot in the last few decades—you can now be openly gay or even female while serving in the armed forces!—but certain dogmatic ideas of gender and masculinity aren’t going away anytime soon.

Take this specialist’s request for leave to attend a baby shower, denied by his commanding officer because “MEN DON’T GO TO BABY SHOWERS,” lest they accidentally grow a vagina or something.

But our dude wasn’t going to miss the pregnancy party, so he came up with a manly excuse.

View post on imgur.com

I had no idea Ron Swanson was an active service member.

H/T Reddit

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Miles Klee

Miles Klee is a novelist and web culture reporter. The former editor of the Daily Dot’s Unclick section, Klee’s essays, satire, and fiction have appeared in Lapham’s Quarterly, Vanity Fair, 3:AM, Salon, the Awl, the New York Observer, the Millions, and the Village Voice. He’s the author of two odd books of fiction, ‘Ivyland’ and ‘True False.’