So last week there were three construction workers re-siding the exterior of my house. We woke up every day to hammering, ate lunch to the hum of drills, and generally got used to the steady screech of power saws. The guys used the bathroom off of our laundry room and were thus occasionally in the house. My favorite confluence of hired testosterone and misfired testosterone (me) was when I was screaming at the kids, "Pick up your Barbies and your babies before you make another mess! I'm sick of just picking up after your messes all day every day!" At just that moment, one of the guys rolled out of the bathroom and back outside, leaving a smell of sawdust and sweat to counter my baby wipe musk.
"What are they doing out there, daddy?"
"They're fixing the house. They'll be done in a few more days."
"Oh. How come you don't fix it?"
"Well, it's a big job and this is what they are really good at." Then my two year old son bangs on the sliding glass door and looks out at the stereotypical picture of what a man is, phallic hammers and chisels dangling from a leather tool belt half way up a ladder, and says, "Using hammer! Using tools!"
"Yah, buddy, tools. Okay, it's nap time dude. Come sit with me and watch Design on a Dime."
To make my impotence-inducing day everything it could be, the gardeners came later and did the lawns. I just closed the blinds so they wouldn't see me folding laundry.
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