Month: September 2011

There are two kinds of men in this world: Men who own drain augers, and men who do not have drain augers but sometimes really wish they did. Males who do not know what drain augers are are not men. Men who call them drain snakes or cables are men, too. People who think drain augurs tell the future from the way plumbing parts fall to the ground after being cast into the air are interesting, but they are not men. Masculinity has a very complex set of rules, as you can see.

So this morning, while I was preparing to shave, my basin’s drain fell closed and became unresponsive to the manipulations of the opening and closing mechanism. I had to use my wife’s basin, and it drained very slowly indeed, as she wears her hair long these days. I knew I could call a plumber to come clean it, but no. I am of the first type of man (being one who owns two augers: a small drill-mounted one and a smaller one designed exclusively to scratch up your toilet bowl while you clear a clog).

So I disassembled two drains, cleaned the p-traps, and used the auger to push any blockage deeper into the pipes where my auger cannot reach it. I have found that my drain stop became stuck in the closed position because its horizontal rod (where the stop rests) had actually rusted through and broke off so that the spot that should have held the drain plug open was actually in the p-trap. Do you know what I mean? Score yourself two Man Points.

So I will pick that up this afternoon and replace it (a five minute repair), and after I reassembled the p-traps, water is again flowing from the sink basins (and not into the cabinets under the sink, bonus). I’ve done nothing else this afternoon, but when one does a home repair this complex, one can coast on it for a while.

Of course, I do know what this ultimately means: people will know I have an auger of some sort and will want to borrow it.

After someone dies, you know if someone close to you has died or you attend estate sales, the families are left with a pile of the effluvia of daily living in addition to the fine china, the antique buffet, and the savings bond worth $25 that is not worth putting through probate. In my family’s case, I have inherited a number of office supplies. Yesterday, I used a number of those heirlooms.

My mother saved every notepad ever given to her as a fundraising come-on or as a piece of swag from someone who performed a service for her. Because I could see the utility of such notepads, I carried out a file box full of them with her name at the top and, sometimes, handwritten notes to herself on them. I have a drawer full of them:

I hate to get rid of the little scribbles in her handwriting, because her handwriting is now a fixed, limited resource, and every sample lost will go unreplaced. Although I’m melancholic and maudlin, I do let those go.

My mother’s only been gone for two and a half years now; my Aunt Dale has been gone for five or six, and I still have a pile of her office supplies. Report covers? Got ’em! A metal stand for a reference-style book or catalog? I don’t know what I’ll use it for, ever, but I still have it. Come to think of it, I don’t know what she would have thought she would use it for.

But the box of 500 number 10 envelopes? I’m still working on it, mostly because one uses so few envelopes of one’s own these days:

And as I prepared to send out a number of review copies of my novel, I needed a mid-sized sheet of paper to handwrite notes to the recipients on. Preferably one without my mother’s name at the top and the name of a questionable charity at the bottom. Fortunately, I have some sheets left in the steno pad I also got from Dale:

Just simple little things, little office supplies, but reminders of my ancestors. Well, my mother and my aunt, anyway. Both of them would be pleased that I was frugal and thrifty enough to save these things and to use them. And, probably, to remember the sources.

James Rummel is afraid that some people might confuse him with the Scottish monster Big Gray Man:

But there’s far more than that to Ben Macdhui. The mountain is the reputed home of a vile and terrifying man-beast: the Big Gray Man, as it has become infamously known. Indeed, while on Ben Macdhui, witnesses to the phenomenon known as the Big Gray Man describe how they have variously encountered footsteps, a sensation of a “presence,” occasional sightings of a large humanoid creature, and an overpowering sense of panic.

I should add that Big Gray Man should not be confused, either, with the "Little Grey Man".

So, some months ago, apparently I put a Power Paw vacuum cleaner attachment on my desk because it needed to be cleaned out so that the little spinner gizmo in it would spin.

Apparently, some months ago, same Power Paw fell between a disorganized organizer and the side of the hutch attachment on my desk, which means it lie hidden there between desk cleanings until such time as my wife really, really wanted to use it and actually ordered another one, waited for it to arrive, and then used the replacement for whatever she wanted pawed powerfully.

At which time I found it. And moved the organizer so it’s touching the hutch so nothing can fall in between the two.

Weeks pass, but this morning, I had a couple of moments to kill, so I picked it up, unscrewed the two Philips screws holding it together using a small screwdriver that also happened to be lying on my desk, and knocked out a bit of dust to unlock the little gearwheel.

The complete fix time: about 5 minutes. The turnaround time: Probably 4 months.

As my sainted mother liked to say, “I don’t like to rush into anything.”

I feed my children McDonald’s Happy Meals on occasion. I hesitate to confess on the Internet because in England, this might be grounds for forcible removal of the children from the family. But there it is.

I also pride myself on being a knowledgeable sort of father, one who can answer most any question in a greater detail than a kindergartner or preschooler can actually retain. It’s important to do so to keep up the illusion of omniscience as long as possible.

Happy Meal toys, the little trinkets that come in with the chicken nuggets and apple dippers with white milk to drink (thereby mitigating, somewhat, the dietary destruction of McDonald’s), have been pretty good to me in this regard. Most of them recently have been rehashings of things from my own youth, so I can give great detail.

Transformers? I can explain some elements of the originals (except for why Megatron transformed into a gun and Soundwave transformed into a boombox with full-sized other transformers somehow shrunken to cassette size). I can even speak to the film series a bit, engaging in the modern controversies. (Bumblebee was a Volkswagen, dammit. What, do you think Greedo shot first, too?)

Marvel superheroes? I can speak at length about Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, and Avengers story lines. D.C. Superheroes? Go ask your mother.

Smurfs? Yeah, I can talk about the origins of the mythos from records to cartoons to the creation of Smurfette. I’ve known this stuff longer than I’ve had a college degree.

Some of the toys were pleasantly non-specific and non-mythos-centric. (Yes, when discussing varied story lines and toy universes, I do use the term mythos with my children. These are traditional stories passed down between generations now, ainna?)

Some of the toys are archetypal. If it’s a little animal, I know it’s from the latest environmental propopanda piece du juor, and the plucky animals are the heroes and the men or the animals in favor of civilization are the villains. They never make the toys out of villains for these sorts of films, as they want children to identify with the cute animals.

Oh, and Star Wars. Every couple of months, something new from Star Wars, trying to get the children hyped up on the new going concern, the Clone Wars, a series so ethically muddled that the storm troopers are the good guys, Anakin Skywalker is a hero, and at the end of the series, Anakin Skywalker is going to kill all his allies. Seriously, how can you not root for the freakin’ Hutts to rub him out at some point? Regardless, I know a lot about the overarching stories if not the specific Clone Wars adventures. I’m less clear why they built ships with the cockpit on the top, set way on the back. Because in space, too much visibility of the enemy might drive you mad or something. Or George Lucas is a tool.

But now, out of nowhere, we have a toy from some mythos of which I have no knowledge: Ben 10 Ultimate Alien.

I can’t suss it out. The name doesn’t tip anything of its story. The toy is some child embedded in a larger translucent monster or alien. Did the boy turn into that? Did the monster eat the child? Is this particular translucent alien/monster a good guy? I just don’t know.

Way to make me feel forty, McDonald’s. Now that you’ve reminded me I have to watch my diet, I’ll have to cut out the fast food for my children and me. How does that suit you?

And now, to distract my children, I will once again how them the introduction to Scooby Doo from 1970:

• This Lysol 4-in-1 Foaming Bathroom Cleaner should be tagged with With Real Police Shooting Action! Jeez, every time I pulled the trigger on the pump, it shot out a stream of foam that ricocheted and splattered so that for every spot of foam I got on target on the surface to clean, I got a half dozen spots of foam on the surrounding surfaces, including the ceiling and floor. No matter how I tried to angle the bottle or the distance from the surface, and I was a couple sound effects out of a Western where the mildew is the hero and I’m the outlaw. I searched the Lysol Web site so I could show you the exact product I’m talking about, but it’s gone. Apparently, I’m not the only one concerned about scattering caustic chemicals willy-nilly to save the world from some evil modern equivalents of chlorofluorocarbons (just as evil as CFCs! Ban them next!).
• Wait a minute, you mean that shower door isn’t frosted glass? I have thought since we lived here that the door was frosted glass. An incomplete splatter-pattern of cleaning chemicals later, and I’m looking out of my shower. Did the previous owner sell us a house with a dirty shower door? Well, in all honesty, I’d do it to someone else. Especially as dirty as this proved to be.
• Dammit, woman, I’m a man! How am I supposed to know the difference between a bath loofah and a toilet brush?