My Man Card is currently suspended

As I mentioned last night, deep in the midst of a fatigue-induced fugue state, a contractor dude started working yesterday on finishing a section of our basement. It’s not a huge project, we just want to turn a small part of it into a nice play area for the kids. Sure, we would have liked to do the whole thing, but Ed McMahon apparently isn’t going to show up at our door with a huge check any time soon. Admittedly, the fact that’s he’s dead doesn’t help, but the probability of getting that check really didn’t change much the day he passed away.

Obviously, we’re excited about the project and look forward to its completion, although things like the Battle for Selecting Carpet and the Paint Chip Hill Conflict will rage for a week or so until a decision is made and I’m found, obviously, on the wrong side of it. That’s really okay by me. My participation in such discussions is window dressing at best. When it comes to picking flooring or wall color, you might as well ask your dog as ask for my opinion. I can’t color inside the lines and my appreciation of visual impression is limited to comic books; I’m fairly certain the Puddinette isn’t going to let me decorate a room in homage to the X-Men. I tend to pay attention to things that A) are my children, or B) plug into an electrical outlet. Further, i’m not the most observant human being ever born, which is only partially due to the fact that I often sit in completely darkened rooms. My lovely wife could actually tell me, “Sure, honey, we’ll paint that basement room X-Men style, in the yellow and blue, that’ll be pretty”, and then paint the whole thing Lover’s Lilac and Petticoat Pink. I’ll never notice.

The worst part, though, is that by admitting to having hired the infamous Contractor, I’m now given The Look of Judgment by men everywhere, and I think we can all agree that the Look of Judgment is a serious thing. Most dudes spend 90% of their time thinking about a) sports, b) sex, c) beer, and occasionally d) work (not necessarily in that order). So unless you’re discussing the designated hitter, the relative smokin’-ness of the chick across the room, or whether or not Connie Chung was hot in 1996, odds are you aren’t going to be too harshly judged by another guy.

But when I mention the Contractor, I get The Look. It’s the same look one woman might give to another that says, “really, you’re going to let your kid go out into the world like that? Often, The Look is accompanied by a comment such as, “You decided not to give it a go yourself?” That’s usually when I ask the bartender for the pink smock and a Bahama Breeze.

Yes, sure, I could have carved the next 3 months out of my life out to plan and build a basement play area for my kids that would somehow end up oval-shaped. Of course, I wouldn’t realize it was oval, notice that the door trim hung like a parallelogram, or see that the floorboards didn’t all hang at the same relative height. It’s not that I’m inept when it comes to home building projects, but this sort of work requires patience, practice, and preferably a mentor. I have none, nor the time to work that problem out.

Also, I’m supposed to get all weak in the knees when a project comes along that requires the use/purchase of power tools. I believe the desire to own a Miter Saw is considered a prerequisite in order to carry a set of external genitalia, kind of like English Comp. 101 is for Freshmen. When I look at power tools, though, I see expensive hunks of metal that don’t even come with DVD R/RW drives, but could alternatively actually sever my extremities. I like my extremities right where they are, so we’re gonna pass.

Long story short, when it comes to finishing a basement, it turns out I’m a damned good Software Engineer. Hello, my name is puddin, I don’t mind paying the occasional professional home improvement, and I’m not going be ashamed anymore.

pud’n