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Don't Forget the Recliner
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2003
The biggest complaint most married Guys have is that we don't have our privacy. Just like anyone else, we need to have a space we can call our own. A place that gives us complete and utter privacy -- refuge from the outside world, our Fortress of Solitude, our Sanctum Sanctorum (from the Latin, meaning "Speak English like the rest of us!").
For me, it's my garage.
Many Guys have a den or rec room, where they spend hours in front of the television, drinking beer, and flipping channels between football and the latest Victoria's Secret commercial. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I have my own office where I do that. But it doesn't always give me the solitude I need.
So whenever I need to get away from the chaos and noise of two children, two dogs, and one wife, I head out to the garage to find peace and relaxation in the soft, lilting sounds of a table saw and a router. Nothing relaxes a Guy more than risking the loss of a finger by making big pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood. Who knows, someday I might actually build something useful.
But Guys need a garage. We have an overwhelming urge to build and create things. To use tools that cause mere mortal men to quake in fear and mumble that they only need a hammer and duct tape. And since our families get upset with us when we drag the table saw into the living room, the garage is the only place for us.
My Guy's Garage has been a nine-year-long project of constant tweaking and improvements -- a real labor of love. Whether it's the carefully-installed peg board on all the walls, the phone line and cable TV hookup, or my latest masterpiece, a 12 foot workbench with an oak plywood top, my garage is becoming the envy of every Guy in the neighborhood.
At least it would be, if I allowed anyone in it.
The workbench was a major undertaking in itself. Even though we've lived in the house for nearly nine years, I didn't start building the thing until last year. That's because everything had to be perfect. I had to find the perfect lumber, the best screws, and the ideal setup for my particular needs. That, and I had to move the piles of stuff stacked against the wall.
All I need now is a beer tap and a working toilet, and everything would be perfect.
Unfortunately not everyone shares the same vision of what constitutes a perfect garage. Not only does my wife refuse to allow a beer tap or toilet out there, she gets offended when I ask "When can we get all this crap out of here?" ("crap," from the Latin meaning "stuff that's not mine."). She reminds me that her stuff is not crap, it's precious mementos from her childhood. Then she says my stuff in the basement is crap -- as if a 20-year-old comic book collection or old beer making equipment can be called crap!
More recently, a friend had the audacity to question the structure and materials that went into making my workbench
"What's it made out of, a bunch of nailed-together two-by-fours?" he asked condescendingly.
"No, it's made out of fairy dust and angel farts!" I wanted to respond, but didn't (mostly because I didn't think of it at the time).
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Of course it's made out of two-by-fours! That's what you build workbenches with. What else would it be made out of? It's like looking down your nose at someone and asking "so what's YOUR skeletal structure made out of? BONES?"
Actually, the bench is made out of Southern Yellow Pine two-by-sixes and three-inch deck screws, but I didn't want to be geeky about it. That's also why I didn't mention I had smoothed out all the exposed two-by-sixes with my bench top jointer, or that the top had three coats of polyurethane.
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But two-by-fours are wonderful. They're a Guy's answer to everything. Need a set of industrial-grade shelves? Start with two-by-fours. Building a picnic table for the backyard? Break out the two-by-fours. Need a lumber rack to store all of your two-by-fours? What else should you use but two-by-fours?
My entire house is made of two-by-fours and two-by-sixes. They are -- literally -- the backbone of 90% of all residential construction in this country. So if you scoff at two-by-fours, you scoff at America.
Besides, I need them to build the shelves in my garage for my "Hello Kitty" collection.
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Erik Deckers
(published week of September 5th, 2003)
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Go Bug Someone Else
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2003
Ask any granola-munching, Birkenstock-wearing tree hugger, and they'll tell you the same thing: insects are the very foundation that the entire food chain is built on. If you wipe out the insects, all life on Earth will soon vanish.
Of course, they also think eating steaks is cruel and inhumane, and will march around in their "leather-which-came-from-dead-cows" Birkenstocks carrying "someone-chopped-down-a-tree-to-make-this-posterboard" protest signs to tell you so. So you can't believe everything they say.
Despite the fact that I make fun of the tree huggers, they're right about this. Insects ARE the first link in the food chain.
But I don't care. I'm declaring war on bugs.
I usually don't have a problem with bugs. Mosquitoes tend to leave me alone -- I've only been bitten a few times this entire summer. My wife, on the other hand, could travel to the North Pole in the dead of winter, and still get swarmed on as soon as she stepped outside.
However, I have been a favorite target of mosquitoes, usually when I'm in the Canadian wilderness. The Canadian mosquitoes know it's me, and they've made it their life's mission (which lasts about two weeks) to mock and antagonize me.
They wait until I'm nearly asleep and start that incessant buzzing in my ear. I'm always afraid they'll turn it into something that looks like a cauliflower with huge warts, so I wake up instantly and start flailing wildly to make them go away.
The mosquitoes also know -- no matter how many times I do it -- I'm one of those goobers who will repeatedly smash my own ear in an attempt to kill them. But even though I can't hear anything by the end of the week, I can't seem to break the habit.
Flies, on the other hand, aren't usually such a bother, unless they happen to get into my house. Then they become evil pests who deserve to be brutally smashed. They follow me around like I'm the Fly King, and pay homage to me by flying around my head constantly. I'm not sure, but one time I think I saw them streaming red, white, and blue smoke behind them as they flew in a Delta formation for my birthday. At least they did until I sucked them up with my Shop-Vac.
But the cause of this clash of the titans was the yellow jacket that stung me this past weekend. I was working outside when it stung me on the leg. I danced around and flailed my arms, trying to kill the little monster in case it was still around. Also, if you scream like a girl, it stuns yellow jackets.
At least that's what I told the neighbors when they asked what that noise was.
"Oh, this war is SO on!" I shouted at no one in particular, and dropped what I was doing. I raced to the hardware store and bought the biggest, meanest-looking yellow jacket trap I could find. Apparently, this particular store refuses to stock the traps with rotating blades and shooting flames, so I was forced to buy a little plastic one instead.
I proudly showed my new implement of destruction to my wife, who was brutally stung the day before. She asked why I waited until I was stung before doing anything about the insect problem, and accused me of completely ignoring her while she was in searing pain.
"You were home yesterday?" I asked.
There must be something special about my house that attracts stinging and biting insects of all kind. If I were an entomologist I'd be delirious with joy. Instead I'm dizzy from all the insecticide fumes.
I've killed dozens of wasps and hornets this summer. I've decimated the area mosquito population. And my latest victory was wiping out an entire ant colony with my Shop-Vac.
God bless the guy who invented the Shop-Vac.
But before anyone accuses me of being a cruel bug-hater, let me remind you that insects can be equally as deadly as any human with a flyswatter. After all, black widow spiders are extremely venomous, mosquitoes carry the West Nile Virus and malaria, and flies eat our food by throwing up on it as soon as they land.
So don't accuse me of endangering the local bird and bat population with my insect war. Instead, consider that I may have actually saved your life by killing the deadly insect that was going to bite you when you came to my house.
It was that or smash you on the ear.
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Erik Deckers
(published week of September 12th, 2003)
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Do They Have Air Roadies?
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2003
Ask any musician what the greatest musical instrument is, and you could easily start a riot. Some believe it's the piano, others say it's the guitar, and a few brave souls would answer the bagpipes. But while opinions vary wildly, everyone would at least agree that it's not the accordion.
But for non-musicians, everyone is in total agreement: the greatest musical invention ever is the air guitar.
If you've never seen an air guitar, let me explain (actually, let me first welcome you to the planet Earth): an air guitar is much like a real guitar, but without the guitar. You hold your hands as if holding a real guitar. Then you strum your right hand and move the fingers on your left hand just like a real guitarist would if he were drunk and had just been hit on the head.
The air guitar has been around for years, although many people think the pretend instrument is only a recent invention. It actually hails all the way back to the days of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. During his concerts and performances, thousands of screaming Austrian women would hurl their bustiers at the stage while the men would headbang, their powdered wigs flopping wildly, and everyone in the arena would play air harpsichord.
But it was Mozart's countryman, Franz Schubert, who invented the air guitar. Since Schubert was too poor to own a piano, he used a guitar to write his compositions. And during the especially lean times, when he pawned his guitar to pay for his other obsession ("Great Composers of the 18th Century" collectible plates), Schubert was forced to mime actual guitar playing.
This style was copied, mostly by drunken Austrian fraternity boys at "Schubert and the Blowfish" concerts, and the phenomenon grew from there.
In the 21st century, not only is air guitar a recognized instrument, there are honest-to-God air guitar competitions, including the Air Guitar World Championships (which you can see at www.airguitarworldchampionships.com). And if there's a world championship, there has to be national championships -- like the ones held in Australia, Austria, Finland, Norway, the United States, as well as The Netherlands and Belgium.
I swear I'm not making this up.
The 2002 Air Guitar World Champion was America's own David "C-Diddy" Jung, who brought home the hardware with his performance of Extreme's "Play With Me" and "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" by The Darkness.
Let me get this straight: it's no longer considered weird for people to pretend to play guitar at a concert while the real musicians jam onstage. Instead, there are competitions to determine the best pretend-guitar player in the world.
So why do people air jam? Do we have visions of air glory,with thousands of air fans all air screaming our names? Do we dream of female air groupies throwing their air bras onto the stage? Do we want people to think we're really musicians, and it's only because of a recent music injury that keeps us from being on that stage? Or do we play air guitar in the hopes of getting noticed by some big-shot music producer?
Big-Shot Music Producer: Hey kid, we're putting together a new big band -- bigger than the Beatles, Britney Spears, and Devo put together. We like the way you play air guitar, so we want you to be the front man for the new group. Here's a million dollars.
So why don't other professions inspire air jam groupies? Why don't air football players fake passing or being tackled? Are there any wannabe TV chefs who stare at imaginary cameras and explain the intricacies of microwaving chicken pot pies? And more importantly, why don't I have groupies who type on imaginary keyboards, grab their hair, and pretend they've got writer's block?
Maybe it's our long-time dreams of being musicians that move us to play air guitar, or even air drums. But an entire air jam band?
I remember going to a wedding where the groom, the best man, and several members of the wedding party -- from both sides of the aisle -- spent the final two hours of the dwindling reception putting on an air jam concert. I learned, during a lull in the air performance, that this group of friends would often spend Friday and Saturday nights in their college dormitory playing huge air jam concerts for hours at a time.
Looking back, I shouldn't have been surprised that two people who "often spent Friday and Saturday nights" playing pretend music for hours would find true love and marry each other.
Maybe the social subtleties of the Star Trek conventions were just too intimidating.
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Erik Deckers
(published week of September 19th, 2003)
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But I NEED Five Hammers
Erik Deckers
Laughing Stalk Syndicate
Copyright 2003
One of the great things about being a home owner is that there is always something that needs to be repaired or remodeled. And while most home owners will agree that I've probably been hit in the head with a hammer too many times, any tool-loving Guy knows exactly what I'm talking about.
The reason these projects are so wonderful is they usually require a new tool to finish them. And not just any tool. We want a heavy-duty, testosterone-laden tool that can also function as a military weapon when it's not being used for minor household repairs.
So smart Guys will only work on projects that require a new tool. But even smarter Guys will create projects that let them buy the special tool they've been drooling over for the past three weeks.
Unfortunately, this puts our wives in a bit of a quandary. They're 99 percent positive we could get by without a variable-speed plunge router, or a new 24-volt cordless circular saw. But they also know that if they ever want the front door to close properly, the faucet to quit leaking, or the stairs to stop collapsing, they may have to let us win once in a while.
Wife: Are you sure you need a 12" dual slide compound miter saw with laser cut guide?
Husband: Hey, do you want this portrait of your mother to hang straight or not?
Eight years ago, when we were finishing the second floor of my house with a gazillion sheets of drywall, I got a cordless drill for Christmas. When we were installing paneling in the basement, I bought an electric brad nailer. And they made all the difference in the world.
But more recently, I tried to convince my wife that I needed a random orbital sander to build a new table. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of actually finishing the table without it, so now I have to find another important project that calls for a sander. Like stopping the toilet from running.
Of course, some tool nay-sayers -- people who have a local handyman service on speed dial -- claim that we'll never use half the tools we thought we needed. "When will you ever use that high-precision titanium wire stripper again?" they ask us. "And why on Earth do you need five hammers?"
Because we do. If you don't understand it, then don't question it.
Besides, each hammer has a useful, if not vital, role in construction. There's the 26-ounce framing hammer, the 20-ounce general purpose hammer, and the "other-26-ounce-framing-hammer-because-I-set-the-first-framing-hammer-out-of-reach" hammer. The other two are "hey-look!-I-have-five-hammers" hammers. You can never have too many of those.
In many cultures, there are certain events in a boy's life that marks the time he becomes a man. In the United States, it's when he gets his first hammer. But, it's not until a man buys a second hammer that weighs nearly two pounds that he becomes a Guy. And once he begins that journey, there's no turning back. Tools will become the very lifeblood of his existence.
A well-prepared Guy will have every tool available -- plus the appropriate spares -- because we never know when we might need it. We buy spare drill bits, Phillips head driver bits, and circular saw blades. Our collection of extension cords could stretch from Chicago to Denver. If we could, we would even have spare garages because the first one is always getting loaded up with useless junk, like cars and Christmas decorations.
And even if the bits and blades get old and dull, we can't throw them away. They can always be sharpened again "someday." Besides, you never know when the other twelve saw blades will be destroyed by, say, a small meteor. So it's important to prepare for any emergency.
I realize the irony in all of this. We're the same Guys who couldn't organize our own lives enough to plan a date with the woman of our dreams. We couldn't commit to a relationship longer than the lifespan of a tsetse fly. But we buy tools and accessories to pass down to our grandchildren, even though our own children aren't out of diapers.
So, wives, please don't scoff at our need for tools, or our feeble attempts in convincing you that a pneumatic framing nailer is exactly what we need to tack down the spot in the linoleum that's curling up. Just pretend that we've actually convinced you occasionally.
Because the right tool would make sure the life-sized portrait of your mother didn't accidentally fall off the wall and into, say, the small gas-powered chipper-shredder we had to borrow from the neighbors.
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Erik Deckers
(published week of September 26th, 2003)
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