return to the land of manliness

There was a long stretch in my life, a few summers at least, when I was convinced there was nothing I couldn't fix with a six gallon air compressor and a 16-gauge finishing nailer. And though I'm really out of practice with either, I have never stopped wanting my own. That tool-lust stirs with every trip to Home Depot, as I pass through the hardware aisles--as casually as possible, pretending I don't want an angle grinder even though I don't know what they do... besides grind at an angle--eyeballing the objects of my infinite desire like a jilted lover watching his old flame hold hands with his new replacement.

It creeps Heather out, I think.

Well, Home Depot had a sale and the Honey-Do list was growing. Between the two, I came away a much richer man. Six-gallon air compressor and 16-gauge finishing nailer? Oh yeah, and that's not all. Racked up a set of cordless power tools: circular saw, sawzall and a screw gun. Came with two batteries, a charger and a bigass canvas bag, convenient for storing or transport.

And as if that weren't celebration enough, my lady took me to see Wolverine battle Sabretooth and various other bad mutants on the big screen. Oh it was an awful, terrible action flick with gratuitous violence, machismo-cheesy dialogue and characters broadly painted with the most archetypal of human emotions... and its only real flaw is that the producers wanted a PG-13 rating so the violence featured limited blood and the only real swear came when Wolvie said he was gonna cut off Sabretooth's "goddamned head".

Despite that, for no less than 24 hours after exiting the theatre, I believed I could kick someone's ass... or build them a house. I wanted to chomp on short cigars and grow a beard. It felt like a great day to wear a plaid flannel shirt and say things like, "Torque." I stood back and surveyed my land of manliness, which I'd crafted over the past month in a series of home repairs and improvement: laid new floors in the kitchen, trimmed the back door so it don't stick, pulled up 500 lbs of concrete and relaid a walking path in the front yard, and scraped the hillside clear of years-old mulch, pine straw, brush and bushes. Just cut the grass and trimmed the hedges. Soon, I'll install a bathroom light with a built-in fan.

Why? Well... because I'm a man and that's how a man shows his love of home and honey... and because she's having a "goddess party" and wanted the place to look nice so... you know.

Doesn't matter because I also conned her into letting me get a new 42,000 BTU grill with cast iron grates and a side burner. I've been making my coffee on it every morning. Black as midnight. Stirring it with the brush I use to knock off the charred remains of last night's porterhouse steak. Life is good. I have a nail gun, and when I can figure out how to justify it, I'm gonna get a framing nailer too.

Then maybe I'll look into those angle grinders...