Big Ugly Man Doll

I do not, as a rule, make flutes.  No one has ever introduced me at a dinner party as, “I’d like you to meet the Big Ugly Man Doll – he makes flutes.”  Doesn’t happen.  I can’t even whistle in key.  This is in stark contrast to my friend Lev, who does, in fact, make flutes.  Damn good ones. 

One of the most distinguishing of the differences between us, which are many, starting with his flutemaking company, is this:  deliberation.  Lev sits down to make a flute in a very deliberate and careful fashion.  He’s not an impulsive or “spur of the moment” or “well, that should fit” kind of guy when he’s making a flute.  Honestly, I expect he’s probably the same way when he’s doing something else, such as, oh, I don’t know, hanging a cabinet. 

Speaking of hanging cabinets, though, while it is also true that no one has ever introduced me at a dinner party as, “I’d like you to meet the Big Ugly Man Doll – he hangs cabinets,” I am more likely to find myself performing that activity than many others, such as, picking two at random, deep-frying whelks or making flutes.  In particular, I found myself just yesterday standing on a step stool, drill in one hand and cabinet in the other, exhorting and extolling Number One Son to continue holding said cabinet up while I screwed it to the wall.  Needless to say, there had been very deliberate and careful preparation beforehand; I do not hang cabinets in an impulsive or “spur of the moment” way.  You know, mostly. 

Having done this before, I knew to mark off the bottom of the cabinets and screw in a “set” bar, on which I could rest the cabinets while screwing them to the wall.  This is important when hanging reasonably heavy cabinets, and even more so when your primary assistant is a highly ADHD 12-year-old who can’t bench press anything heavier than a Nintento.   I also knew to mark – below where the set bar was, so you can see it – a notation about where the studs are.  To do this, I used a studfinder.  If you’re not familiar with this tool, it’s a small device that you hold up to your wall and drag slowly across until it screeches at you that there’s something interesting behind it.  Since safety is our middle name, it will also screech at you if that something interesting happens to be a live electrical current. 

So there I was, set bar in place, studs marked, with two cabinets hung on the wall and screwed to one another, when I realized four things in rapid succession: 

1. The cabinet door was scraping the ceiling a little.
2. The action of knocking said door down a little had just pulled both cabinets out of the wall.
3. They were about to fall on my head.
4. My highly ADHD assistant was nowhere to be found.

Thinking quickly, I held them up with one hand while groping for more screws with the other, and screwed one of the cabinets more fully into the wall.  I then unscrewed the other and took it down, for further work on the doors.  That’s when I really stepped in it.

Well, that’s not true.  That’s when I stepped in the puddle of water on the floor.  We had had some slight leakage the day before from the washing machine, and I panicked for a moment thinking it was still leaking – very much a problem, since it wasn’t running.  I took a paper towel and puddled up the water, and realized it was continuing to puddle out from the wall – the very wall to which I had just attached the first cabinet.  The very wall with the valve to the outside water supply on it. 

It was at this point that I was graced with the presence of more help, in the royal person of the Reigning Queen of Pink.  I showed her the water, and mentioned that I really hoped I hadn’t just put a screw through a water pipe behind the wall. 

“I really hope you have, Daddy!” says she.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because if you didn’t, then what the hell’s leaking?” says she.

You know, that’s a smart kid.  Without further ado, I removed the first cabinet from the wall and took the keyhole saw to the wall, around the general location of the screw-holes I’d left.  Pulling away the drywall – dry no longer! – we saw the nice little hole I’d put right through the center of the pipe, and the nice little quiet stream of water as it made its wet little way to the floor.   So, when I’d really stepped in it was when I decided that my first screw (which had merely grazed the pipe) didn’t feel like it had sunk into the stud properly, and I’d placed a new screw just a little higher and to the right.  That one felt like it really grabbed something.  Oh, yes it had.

Definition:  Studfinder (noun), little beeping piece of shit very useful for finding water pipes behind drywall.  

I do not, as a rule, make flutes.  This is why.  It was exactly as I was taking some plumbers tape to wrap around the hole, just to make it stop flowing water to the ground, that the phone rang. 

The RQoP picked it up, on seeing that it was her mother SOBUMD, and by way of hello shouted, “Guess what?  Daddy really screwed up!”  Then, to me, “Can I tell her?” 

Thanks, kid.  I think you just have. 

SOBUMD had the presence of mind to get me to call neighbor Mike, instead of a plumber, since neighbor Mike can fix anything and usually accepts beer and thanks as currency.  Sure enough, Mike walked over with a sawzall, a blowtorch, and some plumbing stuff, and in a few moments we had a new pipe in the wall – and a new flute in the making.   

Here’s a close up of the through-and-through of my perfidious hole.  I’d grazed the pipe with the two screws in my set bar, and again with the first cabinet screw that I didn’t think had really hit the stud well enough.  For the sake of contrast, here’s what my friend Lev Levit’s flutes look like. 

So, lessons to be learned from this tale:  First, you can’t trust your studfinder.  Just cut a hole in the wall and look.  Second, a good flute will be made deliberately, not by accident.  If you’re in the market for a flute, ask the flutemaker if what they intended to make was, in fact, a flute.  If you find that you’re buying a flute from a guy who was trying to build a violin, or hang a cabinet, or install Windows 8 Pro, and he just happened to end up making a flute, you should probably call my friend Lev. 

He makes flutes on purpose.   

 

Tags: Children // 6 Comments »

Here we are, another Friday, and it’s answer time at the ManFAQ.  Once again I don my manly mantle as Sage of the Sexes, helping demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler, as we add to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years.  Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man.

What could go wrong?

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Question:  Why do we women have to make ourselves pretty and do our nails, but guys don’t?  Why don’t I see nail polish on men?

Answer:   Ah ha!  I heard this question, and what did I see?  I saw an opportunity for….  SCIENCE!

That’s right.  Only through empirical evidence would I be able to provide a completely accurate and objective answer to this obviously burning question.

It just so happened that I was in a position to get a manicure anyway – sometimes life just conspires to throw you into your fate – and so I got the first manicure I’ve ever had in my entire life.  After a full 90 minutes of creaming, clipping, shaping, cuticling, priming, coating, pumping, painting, drying, and primping, I had fabulous nails.  Since I lead a double life working on an Army Post, I chose Army Green, except with sparkles!

What do you mean, those couldn’t be my nails?  You don’t believe me?  Fine.

Here’s another picture.

Yes, I know – I’m fabulous!  The nails highlight the hat, and the hat works with everything, as we all know.

I left the polish on for 10 days, here in January, which included a full week in the office and out to many public places.  So, why don’t all the guys you know get their nails painted?  And I’ll cheerfully conceded that they don’t – even my mostly flamingly fabulous friends don’t (as a rule, at least) walk around with their nails done.  Why not?

Let me review for you all the reactions I got to my amazingly Army Green Sparkling nails.  First was disbelief, from most of the family and coworkers.  Next came the laughter, mostly of the “I can’t believe you did that” variety.   Then there were the inevitable questions:  “Have you, um, started a new, um, phase in your life?”

To some I explained what I was doing in a nail salon, to others I merely said, “Science!” and moved on with the conversation.  The interesting bits to me were more the non-reactions, which were, for the most part, very carefully studied non-reactions.  The first day I walked in with my newly gleaming gelled-up nails, I happened to have a meeting scheduled with about 10 big guys – manly men – with the Army.  There I was, front and center in a small room at a small table, drumming my fingers on the table while all these guys – not a woman there – very carefully didn’t ask me about the nails.

I interviewed a guy for a job we’re hiring for, later that week, and over the course of 30 or so minutes, he carefully didn’t ask me a thing about them.  Mind you, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from them, but he didn’t say a word.

So, why don’t we wear polish more often?  The person who had the hardest time getting used to the nails was me.  I touch type, for the most part, and every now and then I’d glance down at my keyboard and freak out to see my mother’s hands doing my typing.  I hadn’t realized, up to now, the extent to which I have my mother’s hands, but seeing mine with painted nails was deja vu all over again – I knew those hands!  It took a fraction of a second to realize that it wasn’t my mother typing, and another fraction of a second to realize I wasn’t having a really bad acid flashback.

And then there came the big day, 10 days later.  After paying a nice young lady, whom I couldn’t understand at all, good money to put it on, I went to another salon and paid another nice young lady, whom I couldn’t understand at all, good money to take it off again.  While the first experience was pleasant, even if it did lack the happy ending I was curious about (turns out not to be that kind of salon), the second was, how to put this – less so.  My new and incomprehensible friend started by savagely attacking my nails, cuticles, fingers, knuckles, and indeed pretty much any part of my anatomy that she could easily reach from her side of the desk with the largest sandpaper block legally allowed in a salon. She bruised, scraped, smacked, and scalped my nails until the finishing top coat was toast and the exposed underbellies of my fabulous green nails were naked to the elements.  Those elements were quickly replaced with 100% pure acetone.

Yes, my battered, bruised, and bludgeoned fingers, some of them scarred and scratched from their bout with the sandpaper of doom, were submerged in the strongest consumer-grade solvent available, usually used for thinning fiberglass and prepping metal for industrial purposes.  You can probably imagine without my recounting them the various words I used when the scratched parts of my tender hands hit the heated – did I mention she heated it? – acetone, but in case you lack for imagination, please assume that those words included the time-honored phrase “fuckitty-ow.”

After a mere 3 minutes of this, I was ready to give up the location of the rebel base, but my smiling interlocutor had other plans for my hands.   I tried to tell her that I’d confess to anything, just please, let me go, but that’s when she pulled out the pliers – and the paring knife.  I was hoping she was just going to kill me at that point, but no.  She pulled my hand from the acetone, causing it to freeze, since the hot acetone evaporated faster than lines of cocaine at Charlie Sheen’s house.  She then proceeded to hold each finger at an angle that would make Euclid blush and tried to scrap the entire fingernail clean off.   She failed in each attempt, which caused her to dump them back in the acetone – when did a solution of 100% acetone look like sweet relief from pain? – and try again with the next hand.

Twenty minutes later, I was holding a few shaking dollars out with the stumps of my nubby little hands, paying for the privilege of simply leaving at that point, and running for the door as though my life depended on it.  The ends of my fingers looked like pinkies.  (Pinkie has two meanings, you know, and in this case I mean not the little finger on each hand, but rather “baby mice.”)

And so, let me answer, finally, your question.  Why don’t you see nail polish on men?  Because taking that shit off again hurts, and we’re wussies.  Ow ow ow ow fuckitty-ow.  We’re glad you do it – honest – but we don’t understand why.  No one’s worth that kind of hassle and torture.  That’s just crazy!

But they sure looked nice, didn’t they?  For 10 days in January, I was fabulous!

 

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Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment!  Also, forward any questions you’d like answered to BUMD – at – biguglymandoll.com!  As always, your anonymity is guaranteed!

 

 

Tags: Children // 7 Comments »

Yes, I’m blatently pulling this across from Free Range Poetry:

Many’s the children’s tale or poem or book
I’ve seen turned to a movie on the screen;
I worried what this Hobbit film would mean,
and how bald-faced the liberties he’d took?
From many had I heard a pre-viewed look:
The latest Peter Jackson film they’d seen,
and urged me skip, at risk of primal scream —
An Unexpected Journey, best forsook!
And yet this weekend past, I sat entranced
while Tolkien’s dream of Shire-folk unwound,
while stout Bilbo with ogres fought and danced,
like Arthur Dent, whose courage must be found.
And Gollum gollum’s best, and thus advanced
the tale – our Precious, lying on the ground.

 

Tags: Children // Add Comment »

Here we are, another Friday, and we’re still on the throne, waiting for that magic to happen – oh, wait, here it comes – it’s answer time at the ManFAQ.  Once again I don my manly mantle as Sage of the Sexes, helping demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler, as we add to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years.  Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man. 

What could go wrong?

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Question:  What is it about the words “Dinner’s ready” that stimulate the male elimination system?  After extensive testing, I’ve discovered that “Dinner will be ready in 5 minutes” or “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes if you want to wash your hands now” or similar statements have no effect whatsoever.  But “Dinner’s ready” precipitates an immediate dash to the bathroom and a good 5 – 10 minute delay before any male (not just Hubby – as I said, I’ve tested this extensively) arrives to sit down to the now-lukewarm meal.

Answer:   There are a couple of things at play here.  First, he doesn’t know how long he’ll be sitting at the table, and he doesn’t want to get up.  This is actually a throwback to the days where you *never* got up before your host; it was a sign of disrespect, and of weakness.  If it’s just the two of you, he wants to make sure he doesn’t have to get up for anything, so as to prove to you what a manly man he is.  If there are other men around, this goes double.  After all, he thinks, “If she thinks I have a very large bladder…”  Well, you get the idea.  The fact that you’re waiting on him to start eating while he empties that tiny tank doesn’t actually occur to him. 

If it’s just the two of you, there’s also a very good chance that he’s “cleaning up” a little.  You never know when that chicken flambé might get out of control, and a cute young couple could find themselves in Hey Hey Delecto amid the dishes.  I know you find it hard to believe, but we really do think like that.  He wants to be ready for anything to happen – anything at all!

After all, he was probably a boy scout once. 

 

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Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment!  Also, forward any questions you’d like answered to BUMD – at – biguglymandoll.com!  As always, your anonymity is guaranteed!

 

 

Tags: Children // 2 Comments »

Loyal and longtime readers will recall that from June 2010 through December 2011, Friday meant answer time at the ManFAQ.  Now, by popular demand (and as part of my parole agreement), I will once again resume my manly mantle as the Sage of the Sexes, continuing to help demystify the more malodorous gender for those of the gentler.  Friday will once again mean answer time, as we add to the list of questions women have asked about men over the years, and I will answer them. 

As a slight shift during the year, just to keep us all on our toes, I’ll also be fielding questions from new and young parents about their kids – a KidFAQ, if you will.  Since the three lunatic children here are getting to be older kids, I’m happy to pass on what I’ve learned as a parent so that others can learn from our stellar examples and brilliant mistakes. 

We’ll kick off the year with the ManFAQ.  Actual questions, posed by real women, and answered by a REAL man. What could go wrong?

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Question:  Why do you sit on that cold, hard toilet when you could just wait for the magic moment?

Answer:  Let me tell you a story.  Once upon a time, there was a little turtle.  He was happy in his shell, but he was very shy.  No, I’m kidding.   Sometimes there’s a sense that without passing some time, he won’t be passing anything else, if you get my drift.   Also, his mom used to leave him on that thing for hours, so the idea that he can take as long as he likes to take the pet turtle for a walk seems natural to him.

Sometimes this is an escape from all the other errands, and he’s taking 20 minutes out of his busy schedule to drop the kids off at the pool, well, hey, a Reader’s Digest!  Sometimes comes in with a mission, but gets distracted by the reading material – particularly if you leave the Victoria’s Secret catalogue in there. 

Also, he’s living with you, and it’s dollars to doughnuts that HE’S not the one doing the laundry.  Am I right?  He knows what happens if he waits too long for that magic moment, and he doesn’t want to get yelled at again! 

Or maybe he’s just in there washing his hands.  Honest!

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Now you know.  Please, feel free to comment!  Also, forward any questions you’d like answered to BUMD – at – biguglymandoll.com!  As always, your anonymity is guaranteed!

 

Tags: Children // 3 Comments »