It’s true…I’m anything but a man’s man.
Actually let’s clarify that a bit. I’m not metrosexual by any stretch. In fact, I’ve had the same wardrobe for probably two decades now and when I smell Axe body spray it makes me want to throw bricks at the dude’s head.
No, I just mean that I can’t do a single handy-man thing to save my life.
I could sit and talk soccer, biking, running, and beer with the best of them. But anything beyond that…I’m struggling.
Plumbing
A few years ago I rip my shirt off one Saturday morning, beat the hell out of my chest, and claim “today I will change out the garbage disposal.”
I grab a couple wrenches, place myself in precarious positions, and smile occasionally at the wife who’s standing there just shaking her head. Ten minutes later, I’m holding two pipes together as best I can to keep water from flooding our entire house while my wife frantically calls a plumber who says, “you know it’s a Saturday and I’m gonna charge you triple over time to come out there?”
For one damn hour I held those pipes together before paying some dude $150 to turn a shut-off valve that was less than 30 yards from where I laid. We then paid him another $300 to fix what I clearly fucked up.
Cars
The worst is when I take my car in to be worked on. Inevitably I’m asked, “what make, model, and year is your car?”
I’m always “…uhh…it’s a….ummm…”
Then I immediately act like I’m getting a phone call on my cell phone and I’m all, “oh..hold on, I’ve got a call” which I fake while I walk outside and fumble through the glove box to find anything that will tell me what in the hell I’m driving.
Tools
When my wife moved in with me back in 1997 (holy shit I’m old) she brought with her a phenomenal collection of really “cute” tools. They are all sized to fit perfectly in your tiny purse so that no one could ever know you were wielding a Phillips head or flat nosed. (I had to Google those to know what I was talking about.)
I’ve bought some tools over the years, but the cutesy, very very tiny screw drivers still dominate the tool collection. And yes, there’s been many a time when friends have come to my rescue to help with a job and said, “throw me a Phillips head” and I embarrassingly drop my head in shame as I hand them this tiny, itsy bitsy tool that could only help if your model trains broke down in your basement.
So in short…if you need serious work done on your house, car….or well shit, anything…don’t call me.
But if you want someone to stand idly by drinking beer, making you laugh, and referring to shitting as “going boom boom” – well then I’m your guy!!
Oh, and I can cut the living hell out of some grass.
