Alpha got tired of shampoo bottles rolling around the bottom of her shower and bought this chrome wire rack and I eventually mounted it for her. I dreaded doing it, because it required me to drill four holes into ceramic tiles: if you press too hard, the tile will shatter. On the other hand, I enjoyed the job when I finally got around to doing it, because it enabled me to display competence at doing guy stuff. The rack is up and it looks good. When people come to visit and see it, they tell my wife, “nice rack, Alpha!”

I’m not a fastidious worker. I’m pretty good at eyeballing stuff, and with this job I just held up the rack fairly level and centered, without measuring anything or using a level, marked where the holes go and drilled. As a nod to professionalism, I squirted a little silicone sealant into the holes (so water wouldn’t leak into the walls) before inserting the plastic thingamajigs that anchor the screws.

Gamma was standing over in the corner watching, holding her ears while I drilled, etc. The sealant tube was a little plugged, it had been opened weeks before for a different job and had hardened in the nozzle. I poked around at it with a straightened paperclip, then pumped away, and pumped and pumped. A lot of pressure built up, because when it finally squirted out it did a total Peter North all over the tile wall, which I quickly wiped up. Gamma was watching this like this is the way you do it, man.

I eventually finished and cleaned up the mess.

What makes a man a man, after all, besides a dick? I mean, not all of us are into your average guy things. I like to cook. I did needlepoint as a kid. I’m in charge of sewing jobs at home. Although I avoid tinkering with electricity or plumbing, other household jobs make me feel redeemed as a male, since I have such low interest in other typically guy things like automobiles or spectator sports. My little sister was the jock in the family (she just finished a triathlon last week, and on the way home saw her soccer team was a man short, so played the last half-hour with them) and I think she is a great comfort to our father (he proudly told me about seeing her on television recently, in the stands, snatching a foul ball from a big guy). I got picked about second- or third-to-last for most sports as a kid.

I’ve always liked hardware stores and other similar gear, like the camping-related gear at REI in Seattle. In fact, anything vaguely equipment-related is cool; I got a kick out of visiting the fetish shops in Camden with D, Ann, Jessica and Brendan, not that I’d ever use any of that stuff.

While I like equipment, though, I’m not crazy about techological gadgets. I’ve written about trying to pick out a TV/DVD player and giving up in frustration. My car radio is currently set to a single station (my father-in-law was messing with it while we were on vacation) and I can’t figure out how to reset it. (It’s the Blaupunkt with all the confusing buttons on the front). While I don’t mind going into a barber shop or talking with old fogies in a junk shop, I feel as uncomfortable in sports bars as I do in a biker bar or would in a cop bar.

As usual, I’m not 100% sure what I’m getting at, beyond that mounting Alpha’s rack made me feel like a man.