The only problem I have  with this flurry of cold and windy and rainy weather is that it plays havoc with my DIY work around the house….

Don't laugh! I have always been something of a handyman….

REALLY!

If you are still giggling, then I presume you have somehow been influenced by Mrs ED.  Honestly, what happened to ‘Stand by your man’?  I only have to start enthusing about my DIY prowess to someone, and she starts cackling like a herniated hyena.
 
Having said that, I don't think that her reaction has anything to do with my ability, at all. Surely not.

She just doesn't get my style.

You see I think Mrs Ed has this mental image of what a handyman should look like, and I would imagine that image includes a bronzed effigy, rippling in muscle, with a light (and totally unobtrusive) sheen of sweat glistening on his six-pack.   And of course her handyman would be wearing nothing but skin-tight denim shorts, a sweat band, a tool belt and perhaps a pair of sunglasses.
 
Now I would be the first to admit that I may just fall a little short of this mark:-

1. I am not as tanned as I could be (my kids love to compare my pallor with the underside of a fish).

2. The closest thing I have to the sawn off denims is my Baywatch-Fan-club-issue speedo, which Mrs Ed claims she still hasn't acquired the taste for, despite the amount of times I have run past her in 'slow motion' on the beach.

3. With regard  my physique, well let's just say that though my photograph has been featured in various  health and lifestyle magazines, there has always been the little caption 'Before' pasted underneath it. 

But, that does not excuse Mrs Ed’s cruelty, or the fact that she plays on my two weak spots:-

Firstly, that I refuse to believe that there is anything I cannot fix … or extend … or make better… or whatever. And secondly that the thought of PAYING someone to do something that I could so easily do myself drives me crazy. 

But does she care about my feelings?  Absolutely not. She'll ask me to perform some manly task, let's say fix a dripping tap, just a few times .... ok, thirty times ...  and when I somehow still don't get round to it (I'm a very busy man) she starts playing dirty.

Do you know what she does, this conniving wife of mine? She waits until I am just settling down for my Saturday afternoon four-hour-power-nap (something I force myself to do since I heard Dr Phil mention how good they are for you)  and then says

“I think on Monday I'm going to get a guy in to do that tap.”

Did you recognise that? 
That absolute challenge to my manhood?
 
That accusatory lilt which makes my neck hairs stand on end and my adrenal gland burst into Bar-One mode?

It's that phrase 'Get a guy in' -  it's almost like declaring war!  If she simply said 'employ the services of an artisan' or 'hire an expert', that might be almost acceptable (on a good day), but 'Get a guy in'…. ?  Really?

So of course I do what any man would do.  In a fit of red-blooded maleness I roll off the couch onto my knees, heave myself to my feet (being careful not to crick my back of course) and stumble off to the garage to find my tools, muttering something along the lines of  “Get a guy in!  Get a guy in! I'll tell you what you can do with your guy…..” under my breath.

And, of course, as you may have guessed, there is further reason for my annoyance:-

Let me tell you a secret.  My garage isn't really a garage.
It's a window to another dimension.

It's the black hole through which tools pass back and forth into a parallel world.  A world where men have screwdrivers and drills and hammers at their beck and call. 

I've tried to go through the black hole myself.

Desperately hard. I'd love to enter that parallel world.  There might even be a more understanding Mrs Ed living there!
But I can't even reach the hole because… because…. there's a bicycle frame, parts of a wind-surfer, a scooter with no engine, four rusted braai grids and most of the pieces of a broken fish tank blocking the entrance.
  
So I'm stuck in 'Ed'land, where no appropriate tools can be found, not without huge amounts of effort, and at least some bodily harm.   And to fix the dripping tap I have to find the pipe pliers.  Or pipe wrench.  Or whatever.  That thing that helps tightening or loosening pipes, or taps is called.  I know there's one there because I saw it recently in the tool vortex.

Vortex?  Oh sorry.  Let me explain, just in case any women readers have stuck with me this far.  As most men (especially those with children) will know, tools live in a vortex.  A powerful circular current which keeps spanners, hammers, drills etc moving from place to place until that very moment when you need them.  That's when they aren't there.  They have 'crossed over' to that parallel world I was talking about. 

So when you DON’T need your pliers you bump into them here, in the drawer, then there, in the tool box, then on the shelf, then on the wall…. And then, when you want the same pliers, nay, you desperately HAVE to HAVE them, before your wife 'gets a guy in'…

They disappear.

So after cutting my arm on the old lawnmower, banging my head on the tile-cutter (Hey, that's where it is! How come I couldn't find it last month when I was trying to tile the bathroom wall?) and kneeling painfully on a fistful of the panel pins I searched so tirelessly for last week, I just give up, and head for the hardware store to buy a new pair of  pipe-pliers.

Sometime later, after I have purchased some very interesting things to further compliment my range of tools (I even got one of those 16 piece miniature screwdriver sets that they use to fix typewriters, AND a new braai grid - don't you just love hardware stores?) I head home, being careful to drive past my gate, do a u-turn and head back to the hardware store, so I can buy the pipe-pliers that had somehow slipped my mind.  

Eventually I am back in front of the dripping tap.  I am soooo ready for the challenge. The MANLY challenge.  Shirt off, sweat band on, and the cool evening breeze blowing on my six pack, which glistens gloriously under a fine sheen of moisture on the table next to me.  With new pipe-pliers in one hand and the first sixth of the six pack in the other, I set about the task.  Ha ha! I will show them!

Two days later I stare in disbelief at the invoice. 

“Six hundred Rand. SIX HUNDRED RAND FOR A DRIPPING TAP!!” I choke, “How can he charge you SIX HUNDRED RAND?”

Mrs Ed sighs, “It wasn't just dripping by the time you finished with it.  It was spewing water twenty metres into the air.   The guy had to replace the whole fitting after you sheered it off, and remember by the time we got back from having your hand stitched it was seven at night,  so it was double rate when we eventually called him round.”

Not wanting to lower myself to such a level that includes me in this ridiculous  argument, I shake my head and storm off to the Black Hole.  Not by choice. I need to fix the old mantlepiece clock before Mrs Ed decides to send it off to the watchmaker.
 
I know I can do it, if only I can find that miniature screw-driver set... but no, there is no sign of it, just the old pair of pipe pliers hanging on the wall.  Oh well.  This means another trip to the hardware store...
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