The gimlet eye.

REMEMBER when people first started talkin about "househusbands," and it was supposed to be this kind of "sensitive guy" deal, where you would stay home with the baby and pick up dirty TV-dinner trays all day long while your wife reported to her job as assistant manager at Wal-Mart?

Back in the Seventies and Eighties, it was mostly weenies who did this -- guys named Brad who wear those sweaters with the little buttons at the bottom and spend a lot of time organizing recycling drives down at the Unitarian Church.

But lately I've noticed a whole heck of a lot of househusbands around, and they're all guys with motorcycles who play guitar and race Jet-Skis. The Nineties word for househusband is "boy toy," and I don't think you'll find too many of em rootin around under the sink with a monkey wrench, tryin to fix that darn garbage disposal.

The feminist movement has come of age. There's so dang many professional women out there that guys come out of high school and say, "I'm just gonna work at McDonald's until I find someone to marry." Or maybe they get a teaching degree so they'll have "something to fall back on." And then they hang around the student union looking for a doctor, lawyer, dentist, or stockbroker, preferably one that looks good in a mini-skirt. They figure they'll stick out graduate school, and pretty soon those checks are gonna be rollin in.

I find this very, very interestin.

At the same time that we have older women claiming that they're not accepted in the workplace, we have very well-paid younger women out there, working 12-hour days, buying up all the Nicole Miller dresses, and acting more aggressive at the office than Michael Douglas in Wall Street. But ask one of em, "Honey, where'd all your money go?" and she just might say, "Well, my boyfriend wanted this four-wheel-drive Lamborghini, and so . . ."

I didn't notice it till recently, when all these gals in their thirties with a lotta bucks started turning up in the personal ads all the time. That first marriage just didn't work out, and so now they're looking for a Trophy Husband -- some 22-year-old whipper- snapper that'll pay em a lot of attention and support their career. They still have standards -- smoking is a no-no, herpes is out -- but they don't necessarily think the guy has to, like, earn a living. After all, the boyfriend might be a genius who needs to spend all his time at the Actors Studio, doing emotional-memory exercises.

America is on the brink of a great new age in the history of male - female relationships. The new millennium is dawning, with the battle cry, "Honey baby sweetie-pie, where's that paycheck?"

I've given this some thought, and, guys, I say this is a good deal.

Most of these gals don't even want children, or they're pushin forty and so it's a little late to start spittin out yard monsters, so the whole thing is very low maintenance.

They get the degree.

They make the bucks.

They get the ulcers.

We hang out by the pool.

I guess we'd be expected to occasionally go shopping, too, but I can put up with that.

Meanwhile, our harried commuting wives, reporting to their glass- and-steel high-rises with day-care centers (after all, why leave the kids with us when trained Diaper Experts are available?), will become more and more ruthless. They'll have no choice. We're talking Amazon hunter-gatherers here. They've got families to protect, mouths to feed. A hundred years from now, someone will have to write Death of a Salesperson to describe their emotional and spiritual collapse.

MEANWHILE, have you noticed how many businesses are springing up that are devoted to pure-dee male beauty? Apparently part of our job in the future will be to keep that Trophy Bod rippling and rugged, tanned and toned. We're gonna be watchin the hair-do like a hawk, to keep that Brad Pitt Look going. In the evening, we'll need to do the Pat Riley Slick-Up and slip into that tailored Armani monkey suit. We're gonna need a minimum three hours a day at the spa, and when we start to get droopy here and there, we'll need to be lifted and lipo-sucked.

One of the fastest-growing book clubs in America is run by the guys over at Men's Health, and what they're selling is the male version of Helen Gurley Brown's universe: how to look sexy, act sexy, and grab that perfect life partner before it's too late.

And that's going to take a lot of work work work -- on the exercycle, in the Japanese hair salon, and especially in the bedroom. (One of their best sellers is called Drive Your Woman Wild in Bed: A Lover's Guide to Sex and Romance. Ten years ago, you would have had to buy Swank magazine to find a book like this. Today it's considered a necessary part of Male Home Ec.)

And once we've perfected this supportive sex-object househusband deal, what's the next logical step?

I say we get involved in politics, guys.

Let's start with the garden club. Maybe we can make a difference.

You think I'm kidding, but I'm telling you, fellows. I've seen the future, and it includes tanning cream.