Mr. Handsome

From Mr. Handsome:

Last week I got in a wreck on a slick road. It was a minor accident but just enough for the insurance company to consider my 13-year-old vehicle to be totaled.

I was a little concerned when I called Ellie because I didn’t know how she would respond to the news. Would she be distraught about the fact that I could have been hurt? Would she break down in tears thinking about the finances?

My mind went to the worst possible scenarios about how the conversation could go. But I could not have been prepared for the trauma that the phone call would cause. As I told Ellie no one was hurt but that the car was totaled, I almost lost my hearing as she squealed “We can finally buy a minivan!”

My mind instantly became flooded with horrifying images: Cheerios scattered across the floor mats, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches rotting between the seats, juice boxes spilling on the upholstery, banana peels decomposing in the seat-back pockets, fold-down TV screens playing the same movies over and over, and soiled diapers everywhere.

“Honey I think I misheard you,” I chuckled. “For a second I thought you said something about a minivan? My hearing must be off after the accident.”

“You heard me correctly.” Ellie explained, joyfully. “I have been thinking how crowded everything is with Little Buddy and the car seat and all his stuff. And since we are planning on growing our family, we will need a car that is big enough for expansion.”

And with that, my worst fears were realized.

How many of you are familiar with the Man Code? It is a list of things that you simply don’t do as a man, such as enjoying the taste of vegetables, paying someone to mow your lawn, listening to Brittany Spears, or watching a Hallmark movie. And if you do find yourself doing one of those things, you certainly don’t admit it to your male friends. Anyways, at the very top of that list is one thing you should never do as a man: Buy a Minivan.

A minivan is simply the worst vehicle on the market. It’s not a hot sports car. It’s not a manly truck. It’s not even a real van! As any good homeschool family school, my family had a real van growing up. And by real van, I mean a 15 passenger. Honestly I would rather just go straight to that rather than buy a vehicle that is too big to be a car but too small to be a real van.

I decided that it was time to take a stand. “Ellie I am sorry, but I need to put my foot down. Under no circumstance will we be buying a minivan.”

So anyways, the next day we were at the auto dealer to buy a minivan. I will tell you all about it in the next blog post, but before that I would like to hear your thoughts on minivans?

My wife, Ellie, is a very efficient, detail-oriented person who completes projects in a timely and effective manner. For that reason, she is continually confused by my methodology of completing projects, which is completely the opposite.

She watches in horror as I wander about the house with various tools, hammering, sawing, and painting with seemingly no plan in mind whatsoever. She simply does not understand one of the key principles a man must follow when completing a project: He must always make the project as difficult as possible.

Making a project as difficult as possible is a specialized skill that takes years to develop. It is a skill that is passed from father to son and is perfected from generation to generation. Anyone can work efficiently and effectively, but where is the artistry in that? By making a task more difficult, a man can show off his superior tool knowledge and handyman skills, demonstrate the poor quality of store-bought materials, and most importantly, end up with a good story.

For example, say you have a broken bolt on your lawn mower. You could easily fix the problem by buying a replacement bolt from Home Depot. But that’s not what a “real man” does.

A “real man” first complains about the pathetic decline in craftsmanship in the modern, mass-produced era and states that if the bolt had been made right the first time, it wouldn’t have broken.

A “real man” complains about the inflated prices in today’s economy and states (multiple times, for effect) that it is highway robbery to pay $2.50 for a single bolt (not to mention 18 cents in sales tax).

In order to avoid such price gouging, the first step is to spend half a day searching through every drawer in the house to see if you have a spare bolt that would fit. Even after your lovely wife assures you that she has organized all the loose bolts into one container on the work bench and that if you can’t find the right size there, we definitely don’t have it. Like I said, she is very efficient.

When that doesn’t work, the next step is to forge a new bolt out of iron. After buying $500 worth of iron working tools and spending a month learning how to use them, the “real man” finally has a new bolt and fixes the problem. Okay, I’ll admit that I didn’t successfully complete this step. Just as I was about to press the order button on Amazon for my $500 of supplies, Ellie yanked the computer from my hands, confiscated my wallet, and marched over to Home Depot to buy a replacement bolt for $2.68. She was home within an hour, and our lawn mower was working 10 minutes later.

The principle of making a project as difficult as possible was on full display when my dad, my brother Wayne, and I repaired a privacy fence in my brother’s backyard. Three of the support posts had rotted out, causing the fence to lean over into the driveway.  “Why don’t we just put in three new posts and keep the fence otherwise as is?” asked my brother. My dad and I gasped in horror at this simple, straightforward plan. Wayne is a novice at house projects. My dad cleared his throat and said, “Son, to do it right, you have to redo the entire stretch of fence.”

“Well that would work, if you were trying to just get by cheap and easy,” I scoffed. “But to do this job correctly, you need to completely redo the fence, dig the new posts at least 4 feet into the ground for extra stability, and move it over two feet. That way you can enlarge the parking area behind the fence with a new load of gravel.”

Wayne, realizing the stupidity of his initial idea, responded saying, “You know I guess you’re right, but why would I stop with a load of gravel? I really ought to just pour a new concrete slab and add a row of street lights so people can see my new fence.” Having finally come up with a reasonable plan, we began construction.

During the process, we followed several common sense protocols, such as digging all the holes by hand (who would spend $20 to rent a post hole digger?), buying prefabricated fence panels only to disassemble and reassemble them “the right way,” working exclusively during the heat of the 90 degree day because that’s what a “real man” does, and building a custom gate because all the stock gates were just not aesthetically pleasing. After two months of work, we finished the project, and it looked great. But most importantly, it was completed in “the most difficult way possible.”

Written by Mr. Handsome

The start of a new year can mean many things: resolutions, goals, diet plans, fresh starts, and in this house, my yearly closet purge performed by my loving wife Ellie.

The regular readers of this blog will know that Ellie likes to be tidy and organized, so it should be no surprise that one of her favorite things to do is “de-clutter.” The term “de-clutter” is a very nice and pleasant way of describing the savagery that ensues during a closet purge. Nothing is safe.

One minute you may be a perfectly good sweater in good standing, hanging in the closet. Sure I haven’t worn you in five years. Sure you haven’t been in style for a good five years before that. But you have dutifully done your job hanging in the closet and looking quite respectable, only to be rewarded by finding yourself stuffed into a storage box labeled “sell/hand-me downs.”

Or if you have been deemed by the Ellie to be particularly despicable, you may find yourself crumpled into the garbage bag destined for Goodwill. But you should still count yourself lucky, because every year there will be a few unsuspecting articles destined to be tortured, torn apart, and placed in the rag pile.

 The first sign of the impending purge is the arrival of new Christmas clothes, usually purchased on Black Friday. These clothes are typically stylish, well pressed, and undoubtedly chosen for me by Ellie. As Ellie is hanging up these new clothes and imagining her husband looking halfway presentable for a change, you may find her eyes drawn to a few of my, shall we say, “historic” pieces. 

You may hear her remark, “Well the closet sure seems full these days.” I may say something like, “Well I am just thankful for what I have. I bet the folks in third-world countries would be thankful to have good clothes like this.” To which Ellie will reply, “Yes, I bet they would particularly enjoy this pair of sweatpants with 3 holes in them, four coffee stains, and some paint from back when you painted your parents’ house in the twelfth grade.” And thus the great purge begins.

 I usually make some feeble attempts to support a particular article of clothing. I may say, “This neon green shirt would be great if I find myself stranded on a deserted island. The search helicopters could see me from a good ten miles away.” Or, “The holes in the seat of this old pair of jeans provide extra air conditioning.” Or one of my personal favorites, “Just because I haven’t worn this shirt in five years doesn’t mean I won’t find the perfect opportunity to wear it tomorrow.” To which Ellie says, “If you find the perfect opportunity to wear it tomorrow, we’ll keep it.”

 At the end of the day, the purge works out pretty well because I end up with new clothes, Ellie gets a clean closet, and Goodwill gets a sizeable donation. Of course I always save a few classics from the purge out of the kindness of my heart and out of the spirit of Christmas.   

Some embarrassing moments are so traumatizing that they stick with you forever. This particular moment happened when I was eight years old and has somehow remained in my mind for over two decades. I have not told this story to anyone, so you lucky readers are the first to hear it. Ellie hadn’t even heard it until she proofread this post.

The day started out as any normal Sunday morning did, with my mother choosing my clothes. She selected a brand new, bright orange pair of dress pants. Looking back, I still have no idea why she chose those pants, but apparently that was the fashion back in the mid-’90s.

It had just rained the night before, so my mother reminded me not to get my new pants muddy. Today was picture day at Sunday School, and I guess she wanted me to look respectable. I personally was looking forward to showing off my fancy style to my eight-year-old crush, little Ms. Suzie.

It was a beautiful spring day, so our Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Hildebrandt, decided to take pictures outside. There was a hill that went up one side of the church and made a nice background for the photo. She first corralled the boys and took our group photo. As soon as the camera clicked, the boys raced up the hill and started a good game of tag. “Get off the hill so we can take the girls’ picture!” Mrs. Hildebrandt squawked.  

As the other boys ran off the hill, I noticed a bush about halfway down and came up with a brilliant idea: I could just hide behind the bush during the picture. This idea was particularly good because it meant that I would have a head start once the game of tag resumed. As the girls lined up for their picture, I jumped behind the bush. The bush was slightly shorter than my waist height, so I decided to kneel down.

As I scrunched down, my right knee squished into the moist dirt and to my horror left a stain on my new bright orange pants. “Mother’s going to be mad,” I thought, “I have to try another position.”  So I moved into what would now be described as the downward dog yoga position.

In this position, you keep your legs straight and lean forward so your hands touch the ground. Right as I performed the downward dog behind the bush, I heard the camera snap. “Perfect timing,” I thought. “I got out of the way just in time.”

Now that smartphones have revolutionized the photo industry, many of us can hardly remember the days of camera film. Once you took a picture, you had to haul the film over to the drugstore and have it developed. No instant gratification like we have today. “I will have your pictures hanging in the classroom next Sunday.” Mrs. Hildebrandt reported.

 The following Sunday, I was super excited to see little Ms. Suzie and to see our group photographs. I joined my friends and rushed into the Sunday school classroom. We bounded through the door and gasped in horror at the girls’ picture.

It wasn’t that the girls didn’t look nice. They were all dressed in their Sunday best and formed a neat little line at the base of the hill. But about halfway up the hill was a bush, and behind the bush was a bright orange rear end sticking up in the air! “Whose backside is that?” exclaimed little Ms. Suzie.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “It could have been anyone.”

“Well why don’t we check the boys’ picture and see who was wearing bright orange pants?” someone suggested. The whole class rushed over to the boys’ picture, and there I was, proudly showing off my bright orange pants.

For the next week, I hid in my room in embarrassment. I considered changing my name, going into the witness protection program, or running away to join the circus. In the end, I decided to just hope that everybody would forget the picture and move on. Looking back, I guess everybody did but me.