I like to think of myself as a modern-thinking guy when it comes to gender roles in our household. I'm fine if Karen wants to have a career or doesn't want to have a career. I do my share of the housework. I don't feel the need to be the driver every time we go somewhere in the car. I will watch the occasional Oprah. (But not The View! That's the kind of show that keeps me going back to the office every day.)
Of course, there is a tradeoff with all of this. I will not also fill all of the traditional duties that my father's generation took care of. I don't want to nor do I feel compelled to manage our budget. A woman can handle a snowblower just as well as a guy can. And you'd better have low expectations when it comes to household repair and home improvement. My dad can't cook a pork chop but he can single-handedly put on an entire addition to a house. Sadly, these particular genes didn't roll downhill to me, and there's nothing in my liberal arts schooling or years of office-based employment to counteract this. As my grandfather once pointed out, "I was never very good at home improvement stuff but your dad is really good. That skill must skip generations in our family." And just like that he threw himself and his grandson under the bus.
This non-skill was never more evident than in a recent incident involving a leak in our daughter's bathroom. I'm not completely useless around the house -- I can do a few minor things without blowing up the place. But if you want something complicated done then we're going to have to call in the experts. It was in this vein that I tried to pin down the source of the leak in Jenna's tub spout, thinking it was low-risk for household destruction and insurance adjuster visits.
My Holmesian detection skills eventually determined that the source of the slow drip-drip from the spout probably originated in the faucet where water flow and temperature were governed. I started looking for a way to get at a washer in the assembly which I figured was the real culprit. In the back of my mind I had a whisper of a thought that maybe I should turn off the water but figured I wasn't going to go that far into plumbing innards. (<sniff> <sniff> Yes, this has the faint aroma of foreshadowing.)
After some superficial poking around I found a way to unscrew the faucet handle cover. Or what I thought was the faucet handle cover. After a couple of twists it came loose and an immediate geyser of water burst from where I had just removed the cover, which we all know now wasn't just the cover but the entire assembly. If the fire department ever has to show up to extinguish roaring flames in our house, I would be happy if their hoses produced half the water pressure flying out of Jenna's shower right now.
My brain now operated on two levels. At a superficial level I immediately attempted to put the faucet assembly back on while this torrent of water began to fill the tub. At a lower level I felt like I was in a classic sitcom situation. With all of the water pressure there was no way I was getting that faucet back on. But I made a game attempt anyway, completely drenching myself in a futile effort while also mentally running through my catalog of Seinfeld and Three's Company episodes to recall if any applied here.
After about 10 seconds of that aquatic insanity I realized the clock was ticking before the house would be flooded. The pressure was such that the water stream bursting from the pipe reached the opposite wall of the tiled shower/tub area in a straight line. I finally dropped the faucet assembly and flew down two flights of stairs to the basement to find the water shutoff valve. Along the way I tried to confidently convey to my daughter, in a .8 second window as I passed her on the couch, that I had 1) encountered a minor problem in her bathroom, 2) was going to shut off the water in the house, and 3) Don't be alarmed! Everything's under control! Your dad knows what to do!
As luck would have it I found the shutoff valve fairly quickly. One of the arrows in my meager quiver of household usefulness is knowing where to shut off the water to our lawn sprinkler system. I found a similar-looking valve lower in the copper piping, turned it off, and listened as water gradually stopped moving through our pipes. Now, back upstairs to assess the damage.
There was a fair bit of standing water but nothing cataclysmic. More concerning were the faucet parts strewn about the tub. They had come flying out with the explosion of water and I had no idea how they went back together. This was like putting together a puzzle with no picture on the cover of the box. The one guiding principle I kept in mind was, "Having parts left over is not good."
I'm sure you will be shocked -- SHOCKED -- to learn that I was not able to successfully put the faucet back together myself. Much later I learned that two small key parts had slipped down the drain in the torrent of water. So I was NEVER going to get this thing together without help. At that point I initiated my "break glass in case of emergency" option of last resort: call Dad.
When I'm out of my league around the house -- which is often -- my dad can usually restore order. I feel bad that if Jenna is in a similar situation in her house later on in life she's going to call me and I'll come over, wander around earnestly but cluelessly, and then help her look up a plumber on the Googlenet. My dad did some hemming and hawing, figured out the puzzle without the cover picture, spear-headed a quick trip to Home Depot, and got the thing working again. The faucet was restored, the water was turned on, and people could pee again.
Most of the couples in my generation that I know have an overlap of skills: both can do laundry, both can cook, both can hold down a corporate job. But many of us have gaps in these skills that require outside help that older generations handled themselves. Maybe my dad can't do a load of laundry but he can do a bunch of other stuff I've never gotten the hang of which is his contribution to a balanced household. That night I retreated into my comfort zone of known skills and made dinner to compensate for my particular shortcomings that day.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Camping Trip to End All (My) Camping Trips
When I was 13 I went on a camping trip that simultaneously ended my desire to be a Boy Scout and permanently quenched any thirst to go camping at all. What kind of outdoor outing will do that to a young lad? Well lemme tell ya.
My scout troop signed up for Okpic High Adventure camping in Ely, MN. Okpic apparently means "pointless suffering" in Lakota. Upon arrival at the camp site we were issued military-caliber cold weather survival clothing, which was my third sign I was in deep trouble. The first two signs were, 1) I was outdoors in Minnesota in February, and 2) although it was plenty cold at home already, that wasn't good enough for us and we drove 6 hours straight north to get to this place. The fact that we were not technically in the Arctic Circle was merely semantics for geography geeks.
Perhaps in other cultures I would have been considered a man at age 13. But I was nowhere near that in my own suburb-based culture, and neither were my scout pals. The only reason we're still alive is due to the military clothing and the dads that were with us. We geared up like gangly, unsure Michelin men and camped the first night in large tents, the kids in one and the dads in another.
The next morning the dads yelled at us to get going. As is typical in youth camping trips the adults were super organized, already well fed, coffee in hand and gear packed up in spite of temperatures somewhere near 0. That's Fahrenheit for my Euro metric friends. Us kids were stumbling around in the dark, most afraid to emerge from their sleeping bags due to the bitter cold even inside the tent. Going outside was utterly unthinkable. We were completely useless until one of the dads pulled back the flap of the tent and enough sunlight came in for us to find our asses with both hands and get moving.
Moving, because we weren't at the real campsite yet. That was MUCH farther into the woods, as if the night in the tent wasn't high adventure enough. Would we and our gear be transported there by snowmobile? 4-wheel all terrain vehicle? Oh goodness gracious no. We're hiking it and pulling our gear on sleds. With dubious expressions we were yoked up like oxen to plastic sleds toting food, sleeping bags, cooking gear, and other necessities. We slogged through thick snow, deep woods, up hills, down hills, to grandmothers Arctic refuge we go. Finally the dads found a snowy clearing that suited our simple needs and we collapsed on the spot.
The windchill was well below zero and it was only mid-day. I didn't know it at the time but the Boy Scouts give out a badge if you go camping when the wind chill is 50 below or colder. Oh yeah, I got one of those.
We ate some gruel for lunch. We had two kinds of food on this trip: swill for breakfast and gruel for everything else. I don't think there was any difference in the meals -- it just felt appropriate to name the morning version of the campfire-cooked, squeeze-bottle-butter-covered glop something different.
The primary afternoon activity was igloo making. I'm going to share with you the complex, high-tech steps for making an igloo: You shovel a bunch of snow in a pile. You wait for it to pack down a bit. Then you dig out the inside part. A revelation, I'm sure. Nonetheless, we were not trusted to sleep in an igloo of our own making. The guides directed us to use "pre-owned" igloos.
Before we got the privilege of spending any time in our new homes we had "free time." Fleeing back to civilization was not listed as an option so a handful of us decided to try snowshoeing. My main memory of this revolves around an event that can only occur when a handful of teenage boys are engaging in age/gender-appropriate group(stupid)think.
Kid #1: "Hey, I heard that snow tastes like peanut butter the closer you are to Canada."
Me (utterly incredulous): "No way. I'm trying some."
I used a ski pole to bring some of this allegedly flavorful snow to my mouth. I licked some snow and tasted some snow. And I tasted some metal ski pole. And continued to taste it. Yep, my tongue was stuck. It wasn't a complete whiff since I got some of the snow but that didn't lessen this demonstration of idiocy. I quickly assessed the situation: my tongue was stuck, there was no hot water for 5 miles, and I was not surrounded by medical geniuses. So I rolled the ski pole off my tongue, noting the pinkish residue left behind on the pole. My next free time activity was spitting blood for the ensuing 2 hours.
As soon as the sun went down we went to bed. We were utterly exhausted, the wind was howling in sub-zero conditions, and there was no light to do anything. Three of us could just fit in one igloo. We were asleep in no time.
I learned a couple things about igloo camping. One is: they're a lot warmer than a tent in cold weather conditions. By morning our body heat had warmed up the inside to the point where we couldn't see our breath anymore. The combination of our exhaustion and the increasing warmth allowed us to sleep twelve straight hours.
The second thing, and this is a bit more of a negative, is the ease with which one can brush the inside of the igloo and experience snow cascading down onto one's face. This was not the McMansion of igloos, so my head and feet were right up against the walls. Every time I shifted my head I brushed against the inside wall of snow causing flaky ice to fall onto face. I probably could have slept 16 hours if it wasn't for this constant annoyance.
We had another helping of swill and hiked back. I have no recollection of the return trek probably because all I could think about it was the warm conversion van that would transport me home to normal life. Even homework looked appealing at this point.
Shortly after that I decided I'd had enough of the Boy Scouts. Growing older was part of it. A greatly diminished desire to ever camp again was a bigger part of it. It was a mixture of "I'll never top that" and "I have no desire to do anything like that again." I've only been camping once since then and it could barely be called camping because it was for my friend's bachelor party. The event could more accurately be described as "drinking Jack Daniel's outdoors and passing out in temporary nylon structures called 'tents.'"
My scout troop signed up for Okpic High Adventure camping in Ely, MN. Okpic apparently means "pointless suffering" in Lakota. Upon arrival at the camp site we were issued military-caliber cold weather survival clothing, which was my third sign I was in deep trouble. The first two signs were, 1) I was outdoors in Minnesota in February, and 2) although it was plenty cold at home already, that wasn't good enough for us and we drove 6 hours straight north to get to this place. The fact that we were not technically in the Arctic Circle was merely semantics for geography geeks.
Perhaps in other cultures I would have been considered a man at age 13. But I was nowhere near that in my own suburb-based culture, and neither were my scout pals. The only reason we're still alive is due to the military clothing and the dads that were with us. We geared up like gangly, unsure Michelin men and camped the first night in large tents, the kids in one and the dads in another.
The next morning the dads yelled at us to get going. As is typical in youth camping trips the adults were super organized, already well fed, coffee in hand and gear packed up in spite of temperatures somewhere near 0. That's Fahrenheit for my Euro metric friends. Us kids were stumbling around in the dark, most afraid to emerge from their sleeping bags due to the bitter cold even inside the tent. Going outside was utterly unthinkable. We were completely useless until one of the dads pulled back the flap of the tent and enough sunlight came in for us to find our asses with both hands and get moving.
Moving, because we weren't at the real campsite yet. That was MUCH farther into the woods, as if the night in the tent wasn't high adventure enough. Would we and our gear be transported there by snowmobile? 4-wheel all terrain vehicle? Oh goodness gracious no. We're hiking it and pulling our gear on sleds. With dubious expressions we were yoked up like oxen to plastic sleds toting food, sleeping bags, cooking gear, and other necessities. We slogged through thick snow, deep woods, up hills, down hills, to grandmothers Arctic refuge we go. Finally the dads found a snowy clearing that suited our simple needs and we collapsed on the spot.
The windchill was well below zero and it was only mid-day. I didn't know it at the time but the Boy Scouts give out a badge if you go camping when the wind chill is 50 below or colder. Oh yeah, I got one of those.
We ate some gruel for lunch. We had two kinds of food on this trip: swill for breakfast and gruel for everything else. I don't think there was any difference in the meals -- it just felt appropriate to name the morning version of the campfire-cooked, squeeze-bottle-butter-covered glop something different.
The primary afternoon activity was igloo making. I'm going to share with you the complex, high-tech steps for making an igloo: You shovel a bunch of snow in a pile. You wait for it to pack down a bit. Then you dig out the inside part. A revelation, I'm sure. Nonetheless, we were not trusted to sleep in an igloo of our own making. The guides directed us to use "pre-owned" igloos.
Before we got the privilege of spending any time in our new homes we had "free time." Fleeing back to civilization was not listed as an option so a handful of us decided to try snowshoeing. My main memory of this revolves around an event that can only occur when a handful of teenage boys are engaging in age/gender-appropriate group(stupid)think.
Kid #1: "Hey, I heard that snow tastes like peanut butter the closer you are to Canada."
Me (utterly incredulous): "No way. I'm trying some."
I used a ski pole to bring some of this allegedly flavorful snow to my mouth. I licked some snow and tasted some snow. And I tasted some metal ski pole. And continued to taste it. Yep, my tongue was stuck. It wasn't a complete whiff since I got some of the snow but that didn't lessen this demonstration of idiocy. I quickly assessed the situation: my tongue was stuck, there was no hot water for 5 miles, and I was not surrounded by medical geniuses. So I rolled the ski pole off my tongue, noting the pinkish residue left behind on the pole. My next free time activity was spitting blood for the ensuing 2 hours.
As soon as the sun went down we went to bed. We were utterly exhausted, the wind was howling in sub-zero conditions, and there was no light to do anything. Three of us could just fit in one igloo. We were asleep in no time.
I learned a couple things about igloo camping. One is: they're a lot warmer than a tent in cold weather conditions. By morning our body heat had warmed up the inside to the point where we couldn't see our breath anymore. The combination of our exhaustion and the increasing warmth allowed us to sleep twelve straight hours.
The second thing, and this is a bit more of a negative, is the ease with which one can brush the inside of the igloo and experience snow cascading down onto one's face. This was not the McMansion of igloos, so my head and feet were right up against the walls. Every time I shifted my head I brushed against the inside wall of snow causing flaky ice to fall onto face. I probably could have slept 16 hours if it wasn't for this constant annoyance.
We had another helping of swill and hiked back. I have no recollection of the return trek probably because all I could think about it was the warm conversion van that would transport me home to normal life. Even homework looked appealing at this point.
Shortly after that I decided I'd had enough of the Boy Scouts. Growing older was part of it. A greatly diminished desire to ever camp again was a bigger part of it. It was a mixture of "I'll never top that" and "I have no desire to do anything like that again." I've only been camping once since then and it could barely be called camping because it was for my friend's bachelor party. The event could more accurately be described as "drinking Jack Daniel's outdoors and passing out in temporary nylon structures called 'tents.'"
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