In a classic episode of “Seinfeld” — no, that’s redundant — George and Jerry are sitting at the coffee shop analyzing their pathetic existence. After moaning about their shallow relationships and short-lived romances, Jerry announces, “We’re not men,” to which George must assent, “No, we’re not.” The two make a pact to change, and then they carry on with their empty lives as usual for another two seasons.
I had a similar crisis of manhood last Thursday. To those of you who are new to this column, let me catch you up. Last year I bought my first house, and despite my best attempts to negotiate, it came with my first yard. Regular readers have followed my woeful adventures in trying to tame this brownish-green beast. In the resulting landscape circus, I have played the role, not of the muscular Gunther Gebel -Williams — bending lions and tigers to his will — but of the hapless clown whose only solution to any problem is to hit it with a banana cream pie.
Anyway, last week I found myself faced with a problem. The string on my weed-eater broke. While that may not seem like much of a crisis, you must remember that I live in a neighborhood where folks check the edges of their lawns with a T-square. You could do geometry problems using my neighbors’ grass as a baseline. And even though my yard cred had been shot after only a few weeks of home ownership, I felt a burning need to trim the unruly margins of my shabby lawn.
Having never replaced the string on a weed-eater before, I trembled at the weight of the task. You’ll be pleased to know that I made it to Lowe’s and back with the proper replacement string and without having shown outward signs of fear. Step one — procurement — had been accomplished. Installation, mind you, was another matter.
So I confided in one of my colleagues that I needed help. He and I share a similar skill level when it comes to manly mechanical undertakings, and my confession went something like this:
ME: “So, here’s the thing. The string on my weed-eater broke. Now, I have the replacement string, but I may need some help actually putting it on. … Do you think your wife could fix it?”
It’s important to point out that my friend’s wife is the daughter of The World’s Greatest Handyman, and repair skills run in the family blood. Since I moved into my house, she has hooked up my dryer hose, replaced my commode seats and mounted a heavy poster to the wall. All of this as her husband and I stood by, fully ready to provide moral support. One cannot downplay the role of moral support. At any rate, when I asked for help with the weed-eater, he said he would check her schedule.
Another colleague overheard this discussion and grinned at us with a smugness that could only have arisen from the concentrated evil in his heart.
Reeling from the wound of my exposed weakness, I went home. I put on my work gloves. I put on my work shirt. I put on my work shoes. I got my weed-eater and the package of replacement string. Then, in a fit of machismo, I tore open the wrapper with my teeth. Following the two-step directions on the package, I snapped the string into place. When I plugged it in, I felt a rush of testosterone as the blade began to spin.
Within 10 minutes, my lawn had such even edges that someone could calibrate a proton laser on the grass. In the meantime, I managed to tear up the entire replacement string, as well as shave a quarter inch off the driveway. But as I told myself, the poor weed-eater just couldn’t handle my brute strength.
I e-mailed my friend and boasted that I wouldn’t need his wife’s help after all. He was so inspired by my success that he went out and replaced the string on his trimmer. You’d think we had both been to the same John Eldredge retreat, but there comes a point in life when a fellow just has to cowboy up. I would say “string up,” but in the Old West, that meant something different altogether. Happy trails.
