Objective
Attain Manhood
Example
This Sunday I set out to do Man Things...
I was attempting to fill the void my father had left behind, as well as get around to the things he would normally have been doing for me. After he passed away suddenly this winter the children and I decamped from our old house, an eternal renovation project, and moved into my mother's. This alone has led to many hilarious and frustrating developments which are a story for another time.
So my house has sat unused (disused) and has begun to show extreme signs of abandonment. I decided the best remedy for that and for a long Sunday stretching out into wherever, was that I wear the pants in the family and gather up the kids for a day of Man Chores.
We started out the morning on the porch with hot chocolate and a pair of binoculars prepared to watch the local wildlife wake up. As it turns out we were the local wildlife...so wild that we scared anything feathered or four footed away. So mostly we just slurped marshmallows and watched the leaves on trees close up. After fortifying ourselves with manly fried eggs and sausage we sauntered over to the homestead with a List.
Now I understand why men don't make lists...they are set ups for failure.
My Man Chores List
- Mow the lawn
- Fix well house pipes
- Take trampoline apart
- Clean and move motor home to barn
- Get old Explorer running and move to barn
- Burn old lumber and tree limbs
- Remove hanging limbs from storm and two trees that fell down
- Wash minivan
Okay, I knew it was a lot, even for someone that knew what they were doing, but the sun was shining and I had high hopes.
I also had high grass. About four feet high actually. So while the baby was napping I hauled out the old push mower and cranked it up. (pulled the little starter cord four hundred time while yelling "crap!" a lot and pleading)
Because of the jungle-like thickness and height of the grass I had to tilt the mower at an extreme angle to keep it form clogging up...so pretty much I crawled around on my knees mowing. I managed to cut a few game trails for us where we needed to go and gave up on the rest.
Next the well house. During a hard freeze in December one of the pipes had burst and flooded the yard. I wasn't about to fix it in the snow and ice when I could hide at my mother's until the sun came out again. So here I was. I began by removing the broken part of the pvc which miraculously pulled out of just the right spot. No problem, I only had to replace one piece. I gave it one solid tap just to settle things and the whole thing broke in pieces. I spent the next hour or so trying to put together all the puzzle pieces of pipe and elbows laying around the workroom into a facsimile of what I had seen before (had I known this would happen I might have paid closer attention).
The kids played in the maze of mower trails and pretended to be on a boat. The baby chewed on pipe fittings and watched me suspiciously. Fallon lay on a blanket pretending to sleep when I asked for help.
Finally as I stood with an unrecognizable brass valve thing in one hand and the hammer I was beating it with in the other she piped up. "Mom you don't need to be able to fix a well house...look at all the other stuff you already know how to do...it's a well house mom and you're a girl."
"Not today I'm not." I growled. But she was right, I am a girl and my genetic predisposition to nurturing has absolute nothing to do with fixing plumbing.
I finally gave up on the well house.
Do you know how hard it is to dismantle a trampoline with nothing but a pair of needle nose pliers?
I do. It takes roughly one hour to remove ten springs. I have decided to save this project for another day as well.
With a lot of close calls and a large amount of gasoline we managed to get all the wet wood and lumber burning. It seems destruction is more my line. We danced around the bonfire eating chips and drinking ice tea from the jug.
I was beginning to lose it. But at least something on my list was getting done.
Now it was time to move the motor home...my dads' '77 Dodge monster that was adorning my yard all winter sinking ever deeper into our notorious mud. I had put the battery charger on it all night and got it going. Now I took a chain and connected it to the back of my van. I gave Fallon specific instructions on how to help pull and told her three times to stop if I honked.
Little did I know the horn was broken.
After some horrendous grating noises and a few chugging attempts at turning over the engine the battery died again. Fallon finally stopped the van. "Was it supposed to sound like that?" she asked.
Onto the next thing.
The charger was busy trying to reanimate the old Ford Explorer so I stopped long enough to scarf up some chips, add more wood to the fire and beat my chest while jumping on the now saggier trampoline with the pirates. The baby had now decided he was bored of this adventure and he began to complain.
The Ford Explorer started and I limped it back to the barn.
Yay!!! I could finally scratch something off the list. I shook my fist at the sky and chortled madly. The children stayed clear of me now.
I wrestled a fourteen foot tree limb to the ground and dropped it into the bon fire. Effin woohoo!!!!...Two things!! Two Man Things...and it had only been six hours! Alright!
Fortified by my success I rounded up the kids and let Liam "drive" back to my mom's, just like my dad used to do with me. (country living, dirt roads, nothing but cows and grass).
"Now we can wash the car" I shouted with a sort of gleeful mania that made them all agree to help because they were afraid of my reaction if they didn't.
This was the good part. Sweaty, bruised, bleeding, blistered, and exhausted, with an uncompleted list, I had the time of my life having water fights with the kids and washing the van the old fashioned way with sloppy wet slaps of warm sudsy water.
Later, drinking a margarita on the porch while the tub filled with hot water I felt really good...but also really humbled.
Who was I to think I could fill Man shoes...shoes that boys spend all those years growing into? I'm not a man...I'm just barely a lad. A momlad.
Homework
Start something you can't finish. No list.
Extra Credit
Enjoy the journey while being happy with a minimum of accomplishments.
No comments:
Post a Comment